


A Better Life

by HerAld_90



Series: A Better World [1]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Bodily Harm, Crime Fighting, Detective Work, Drama, Gen, Murder, Police corruption, threat of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-11 04:29:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 42,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7028632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerAld_90/pseuds/HerAld_90
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nicholas Wilde, first fox officer of the ZPD, has got life made. Celebrating five years of getting his life back on track, he has the respect of his comrades, a near-perfect record, and the best partner/friend/sorta-something-more that anyone could ask for in Judy Hopps.</p><p>Then the murders start, mammals butchered, resurrecting a terror long dormant. The body count is rising. His better life is teetering toward ruin. And Nick finds himself and Judy once more at the center of a deeper conspiracy than anyone could have imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Faceless

Five beers and two platters of cheese-drenched nachos, and Nick Wilde knew he was in trouble.

The night began simple and safe enough. He and Judy Hopps had come in from their patrols through the Rainforest District to clock out and catch dinner together, only to find half the ZPD waiting in the lobby for them. Turned out, to Nick's surprise, that day had marked the 5th-year anniversary of his joining the Zootopia Police Department.

"Not that I particularly care," said Chief Bogo, the gruff water buffalo going about the "celebration" with all the grim fortitude he would have used when approaching a hostage situation, "but Clawhauser was squeeing all day while you were gone and it was making the hardened criminals uncomfortable. I had to do something. Don't get used to it."

"It" had involved a cake the size of a table tennis table with the heartwarming message "Here's to 5 years of not getting lethally shot" written on it in thick butter frosting, as well as... well, even as kind a soul as Judy hesitated to call it a speech, but Bogo had certainly said a few words just so they all knew who exactly had written out the cake's message.

"When I first met Nick, he was unlike any fox I'd met before. Brave, loyal, clever. Oh, how I wanted to strangle him where he stood. But I didn't, and Officer Hopps managed to solve the case of the Night Howlers. So there we go. Have a good night everyone, get out of the way for the night shift."

"A real inspiration, that guy," said Nick, before getting whisked off by Judy, Clawhauser, and a few other officers for what they promised to be a real celebration.

The location of that "real celebration": Mc'Shammy's, one of the few bar & grills Nick had never gone to in his days as a conman for its largely-cop clientele. Not that he ever would have guessed just from looking at the seedy, smoke-dimmed insides, barely lit by a number of neon signs advertising junk and sundry along the walls, the pangolin manning the bar and looking halfway to death's door, or the pool table that looked like at some point in the distant past someone had attempted to make it into an actual pool. But the beer was free (paid for by Officer McHorn), the food was plentiful (had to account for Clawhauser's appetite), and Judy's paw grabbing his as they entered was soft and warm and made his stomach pull a perfect swan dive, so it was easy enough for Nick to go into this situation with a smile.

That smile was much harder to maintain 2 hours, five beers, and two platters of cheese-drenched nachos later. Wedged between Wolford and Fangmeyer at a corner table, a half-awake Judy at some point having taken up residence in his lap and McHorn and Francine rooting Clawhauser on at the other side of the table in some sort of eldritch nacho-eating dare, Nick had little choice but to regret his recent dietary decisions and listen as the two wolves threw out increasingly embarrassing (and oft preposterous) stories of their own cases with the fox of the hour.

"Hey Wilde, you remember that time over in the Canal District, with the three little piggy jewel thieves and that exotic camel assassin? Man, I thought you'd never get the stench of sewer water out of your fur after that!"

"Yeah," said Nick, face flushing in time with Judy's giggles. "How could I ever forget that case, Wolford..."

"That's nothing," said Fangmeyer, slamming another finished beer bottle to the table and signaling for the waitress. Words starting to slur, the white wolf threw an arm around Nick's shoulders and hugged him tight. "This guy here... this smug little jerk... God bless this smug little jerk. It was uh... two, yeah, two and a half years ago, it was. Hopps, you were out sick that week, I remember because you didn't go home to rest and get better until you threw up all over the interrogation room and Chief Bogo himself drove you back to your apartment. Anyway!" He paused long enough to accept his new beer from the doe waitress with a smile and wink that Nick could only scoff at, before continuing, "Anyway, two years ago, Tundratown, cold as one of the Chief's glares. Standard breaking and entering, or so it seems at first. A toy store that maybe said no to one of those protection rackets that pops up every few months when they think Mr. Big won't notice them."

"And Mr. Big always notices them," said Francine, chiming in as she stood up from the table. "Off the record, but sometimes I gotta bless that little shrew. This place is too quiet. I'm heading to the jukebox and I'm not taking suggestions."

Fangmeyer continued his story to the sweet tunes of Led Sheeppelin's Black Dog. "So while I'm inside picking through to see what's been stolen and taking the owner's statement, old Wilde here's outside keeping an eye out for anyone looking like they're trying to see how their handiwork's being treated. 10 minutes there and a herd of kids, polar bear cubs and arctic foxes and all that, come over looking like it's the first day of Christmas break—”

"It was the first day of Christmas break," Nick chimed him, a paw stroking over Judy's head as the rabbit started perking up to Kashmeerkat playing through the bar. "Bunch of kids hearing their favorite store got trashed and worried sick for the owner."

Fangmeyer nodded. "Mr. Bartleby, that was the guy's name. Creaky little antelope, not the kind of guy you'd expect in Tundratown. Anyway, this soft-hearted little jerk here, he listens to the worries and whimpers of that gaggle of kids for what can't be more than five minutes before he goes into the store, shoves a fat $50 into Bartleby's hooves, and comes out with that year's hottest-selling toy, one for each of the little munchkins."

"Aww!" McHorn reached over the table and, gentle as a rhino could be, gave Nick's shoulder a playful shove that still made the wood wall behind him creak. "Never took you for such a softy, Wilde."

"What can I say," said Nick, contemplating trying to finish the half-full bottle in front of him before deciding he likes his liver in one piece, "I have a soft spot for kids."

"I can attest to that," said Judy, popping up on the other side of Wolford with a cheeky grin that belied the pair of fox-sized beers she herself had drunk. Nick started at the sight of her and looked down, having not even noticed her leaving his lap. "You guys want a softy, you should see him whenever we visit home. You'd think all my little sisters and nieces and nephews and cousins were his own flesh and blood, the way he dotes on them."

A chorus of laughter rang around the table, and Nick decided that sixth beer was worth finishing after all.

“You know, Nick,” said Clawhauser through a mouthful of chips, “I’m surprised you haven’t thought about settling down and having some kids of your own, if you’re such a softy for them. The big 4-0 isn’t that far away and those lady-killing looks aren’t gonna last forever.”

Despite a heavily muscled and inebriated wolf sitting between them, Nick could still feel Judy’s flinch at this statement. Keeping a better grasp of his mask even with the alcohol coursing through him, Nick shrugged and made an “ehhh” gesture with one paw. “Do I like kids? Yes, yes I do. Do I think I’d be anything resembling a good parent worthy of kids? No, no I don’t. Also yes, thank you for the reminder of my ever-encroaching mortality, dear Benji.”

The tubby cheetah had the decency to blush, though it seemed Fangmeyer’s drinks had finally gotten to him as he gave Nick a punch to the shoulder that somehow seemed so much harder than McHorn’s. “Aw quit it with that kind of defeatist talk, Wilde! Being a dad’s easy! Just do as your dad did, like I do! My little Joey’s turning out alright!”

Judy’s voice came next, carrying with it steel and not an ounce of the beer she had consumed that evening. “Your Joey likes to blow up trashcans with firecrackers and once went riding through Little Rodentia on a unicycle.”

“And how many other kids his age do you know that can make firecrackers and ride a unicycle half as well, eh?”

Nick drained the last of the bottle and signaled for another, feeling all the while Judy’s gaze on him growing more alarmed, her voice when she spoke (not over him, not past him, only for him) growing cold now, starting to fill with that police sergeant’s harshness he can’t help but feel chills at. “Fangmeyer, I mean it. Drop it. Nick, come on, I think you’ve probably had enough to drink—”

Maybe it was his guzzling down the entire bottle of beer down in one throat-burning go, maybe it was the rapid TAP-TAP-TAPPING of his extended nails against the wood of the table that Nick couldn’t get a hold of, maybe it was the bristling fur he decided not to get a hold of, but some of the others around the table seemed to start catching on that something was wrong with the whole topic. McHorn and Francine exchanged LOOKS, the kind cops in Zootopia always did at the first inkling that a predator might start causing trouble, Wolford and Fangmeyer looked utterly taken aback as they stopped squeezing the fox between them, while Judy’s nose, despite whatever efforts to progressivism she aspired to, began twitching like the rabbit she was.

“Uh, Nick?” asked Clawhauser, food before him forgotten as he reached across the table to place his paw on the fox’s. “Is everything okay? Look, we’re really sorry if this is a sensitive topic, we didn’t know… I mean you hardly ever talk about… Judy! Has an amazing family, and you and Judy so we thought—”

“My father.” The words came easy and calm, the years and decades of playing the con coming back to him in that moment of need. “What do I remember about my father? Let me think… Corduroy slacks. The spiffiest little ties you ever did see. A dusty clothing store he barely made ends meet with but loved all the same. Orange, heh, orange-flavored root beer, if you can believe they ever made such a thing. My mom always hated how it made his breath smell, but honestly, I thought his cologne was worse. And let me think…”

“Nick…”

Judy’s voice came soft and weak, pleading in a way she rarely sounded. Grabbing a bottle off the table, even though he knew it to be empty, Nick ignored her. “Let me think… and yeah, the thing I remember most clearly about my old man; the back of that rotten scoundrel’s jacket as he walked out the front door one June evening, saying he was going to the store, and never coming back. Yeah, just doing what my dad did… probably not the best advice.”

The table went silent then, minutes passing until Nick felt less angry and more stupid for everything he said. Sliding off his seat between his two wolf compatriots, he slunk under the table to the other side and gave a half-hearted wave over his shoulder. “Well, guess uh… guess I’ll be seeing you guys tomorrow. Take care, don’t drink any more than I would, thanks for the… for the wild time.”

A few similarly-weak farewells followed Nick across the bar and out the front door into a crispy Tundratown night. There he waited on the sidewalk, watching snow as far as the eye could see glisten in light of a hundred neon signs, the only sign of life out on that cold, lonesome street.

The door creaked open behind Nick and Judy joined him outside, passing him his winter coat he’d left behind in his haste, her own already wrapped tight around her. He took it without a word, imagining for a bizarre moment as he slipped it on that the ZPD emblazoned on the back of the dark blue coat had transformed into a bulls-eye.

“I’m sorry, Nick. I shouldn’t have let them get going that far. I should have said something.”

Nick shrugged, slipping one paw into a pocket, letting the other hang free as he started down the street to the nearest bus station. “It’s cool, Carrots. You heard Benjamin. I hardly ever talk about myself.”

Judy slipped her paw into his as they walked, fingers entwining to return his needy squeeze. “You do with me.”

Nick rolled his eyes as they turned a corner, instinct driving him to pull the rabbit closer against him at the sight of a dark alley ahead to their left. A stupid instinct, he knew; she could beat his butt any day. “Yeah, well, what, are you supposed to go blabbing to them about my deepest secrets or something?”

“Sure!” Judy smiled, a little wildly, a little drunkenly. “Should have heard the girls in the precinct showers last week when I was telling them all about International Women’s Day!”

Nick stumbled, and not only from the snow and the six (seven?) bottles of beer starting to work their magic. Cheeks feeling like they were ready to burst into flame, he turned a theatrically affronted look Judy’s way. “You didn’t!”

They passed the alleyway. Nothing happened.

“Nope,” she said, grinning in such a way that Nick couldn’t help but grin back. “But I had you there for a moment, didn’t I? Hehe, hah, what, what’s the word I’m looking for? A… bustle? A trustle?”

Nick rolled his eyes, but kept smiling. “It’s called a hustle, sweet—”

The frozen gale swept up the street from behind them, driving claws of cold into their backs and the howls of the damned through their ears. A half-formed comment on the weather died on Nick’s lips as a scent carried along by the gale invaded his nose, bringing him to a halt.

A moment later Judy stopped walking and looked back at him. “Nick?” She took a step back toward him. “You’re not going to lose your dinner all over the sidewalk, are you? All that cheap beer getting to you? Nick? Nick, what is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Another gale, another blast of that curdling stench, sending every hair on Nick’s body on end. He turned back behind them, taking a deep sniff and nearly gagging. He looked at once to the alleyway. “Oh damn it.”

The next moment Judy was at his side, one paw clutching the radio at her belt, the other pulling her stun gun from its holster. “What do you smell?”

“Blood.” Nick swallowed, throat suddenly dry, beer and nachos threatening to come back up, before his paws found wit enough to reach for his own stun gun. “Lots of it. I lead, better night sight.” Judy responded with a pat to his hip. Nick felt it and started walking back down the sidewalk toward the alleyway, weapon drawn and eyes focused on that stretch of black in the sheer white of the ice buildings and fallen snow. Even with his superior fox night vision it seemed an unnaturally dark alley, not even an impression of what might wait within the shadows for him to see. Only the growing, ever-fouler stench of spilt blood.

Three feet off and they saw the slowly growing pool of blood edge out of the alley, stark red against the surrounding white. Nick’s stomach fell at the sight of it. He turned to his partner and already Judy was on the radio, reporting their location and the possible crime with a forced calm the conman of Nick’s earlier years would have killed to possess.

Shuddering at the poor choice of words his inner thoughts had given him, Nick started again for the alleyway entrance. “Hello? This is Officer Nicholas Wilde and Judy Hopps, ZPD. Is there someone hurt in there? Please, respond if you can!”

No answer came. Nick looked over his shoulder at Judy. “Carrots, you got a flashlight?”

Joining his side once more, she shook her head before flicking on her cell phone and turning its brightness up to maximum.

“Ow! Carrots, watch where you aim that! Night vision, right here!”

Judy rolled her eyes and aimed the phone into the alleyway. The beam of light illuminated a mottled green dumpster, walls plastered with graffiti and posters for performers long gone, a fire escape, a short pyramid of cardboard boxes and blankets that might have been some hobo’s winter home, a red spaghetti-string purse—

No, thought Nick with a start. Not red but tan, colored in blood.

A twitch of Judy’s wrist sent the beam of her phone deeper into the alley, and there they saw it, Judy letting out a scream, Nick barely making it back to the sidewalk and out of the crime scene before emptying his stomach. Even out there, in the fresh air and the lights of neon signs and flashing of approaching cop cars, the image of the alley remained seared into his mind, threatening with every breath to bring up more burning stomach juices. Even a minute later, as he looked up to the approaching forms of Officers Grizzoli and Johnson, he saw the nightmare.

A woman, some kind of antelope, propped up against several bags of trash like a puppet with its strings cut. Her black winter coat and scarf had been drenched in blood, so much blood, more than any antelope’s body should have contained, all of it pouring down from-from—

Nick retched again, narrowly avoiding Johnson’s legs. The lion danced back and out of the way, face a war between disgust and concern. “Jesus, Wilde, the hell’s gotten into you?”

Several seconds of catching his breath, before Nick managed to stand up and look back to the alley. Judy still stood there at the entrance, arms hanging at her sides and ears down. A splotch of grey and white against the red and black.

“Officer Wilde! Nick!”

“C-call a… call an ambulance…forensics, call…” Nick clenched his eyes shut and shook his head, turned to look up at the ever-more panicked lion officer. “Call everyone you can.”

Johnson nodded and, shooting a look to Judy at the alleyway, started backing up toward his cruiser. Grizzoli took over, the veteran officer ducking to one knee to more easily look Nick in the eyes. “What is it, Wilde? What did you see?”

It was Judy who answered, finally turning from that blackened alley to stare at them with the eyes of the lost. “No face. She has… she has no face.”


	2. The Investigation Begins

The night still sent bone-deep chills through her body, the shadows of the surrounding buildings still lurked with dread and the promise of danger, and the buzz of the earlier alcohol had settled into a gurgling ache deep in the pit of her stomach, bringing with it the promise of a skull-splitting headache if she had to linger in the lights of the countless cruisers filling that frozen stretch of road, but Officer Judy Hopps still perked to attention at the welcome sight of a water buffalo rumbling in her direction.  
“Chief Bogo, sir!” She jumped from where she and Nick had been sitting at the sidewalk edge and snapped off a salute, elbowing her partner to do the same. “You are a sight for… for sore eyes, sir. Things aren’t looking pretty.”

Bogo returned her salute, eyes flickering only a moment to the fox beside her before turning back to her. “Officer Hopps, Wilde. No other pair of cops I’ve ever worked with have ever stumbled into and out of this much trouble, but a murder’s a bit much, even for you two. And while off-duty, at that. From what I heard of what Officers Johnson and Grizzoli initially found here, I’d have expected the two of you to have left at first opportunity.”

“This isn’t our first murder, sir,” said Judy, thanking whatever deity was looking out for her that night that the tremble in her paws hadn’t made it to her voice. She didn’t think she could pass it off as being from the cold. “Ni—um, Officer Wilde and I have handled more than our fair share of homicides. However we might have… initially been affected, we’re here and ready to work.”

Beside her, Nick let off a yawn too long to be real. “Yeah, what she said.”

Bogo huffed and, motioning for them to follow, started for the alleyway, now taped off with yellow police warnings and surrounded by a near-army of forensics officers. “You’ve dealt with homicide before, yes, but this… this might be something far worse.”

“I know," whispered Nick, so low that even Judy barely heard him. She glanced at him, confused, only for him to shake his head and mouth that he’d tell her later.

Past the police tape and car-mounted search lights, the alleyway had been thoroughly searched and categorized. Numbered placards sat next to every item of interest, experts with cameras Judy had only met in passing snapping off photos from every angle. At the far end of the alley a jackal in a swirling white coat sat kneeling next to the body, blocking sight of the poor antelope’s skinless face with the great bulk of his body, to Judy’s embarrassed relief. By now the blood coating so much of the alley had frozen.

“What a horrible night to die,” spoke the jackal aloud as they approached, a gloved paw stroking up one of the antelope’s horns in a manner that made Judy queasy. “The cold and the darkness. Enough of that already in the grave. Shouldn’t have to suffer it while heart still beats and blood still courses. A dreadful night to die.”

“Doctor Beltz,” said Bogo, stopping a pace behind the jackal. “You are familiar with Officers Hopps and Wilde. They were first on the scene and… despite my better judgment… will most likely be heading this investigation. What can you tell us so far?”

“Not much,” said Beltz, his back letting out an alarming crack as he sat up straight. Judy forced herself not to turn away as that bloody, faceless head came back into view, nothing left but muscle tissue and bone. “Not much at all.” The jackal stood and spent a moment brushing at the dirtied knees of his pants before continuing. “Not until I can get her back to the lab, to my proper equipment. Death was probably exsanguination from a clean slash across the victim’s throat, hit all the right arteries for a clean, quick kill.”

“Someone practiced with killing, then. Because an amateur would be too damned lucky for us.” Nick shifted from foot to foot, paws tucked tight into the pockets of his jacket. Judy could relate. “Any sign of a struggle?”

Beltz shook his head. “Not enough to indicate there was a fight. I expect the victim was caught by surprise, dragged into the alley as she passed it and here done away with.” After signaling to two attendants, a pig and a pangolin, to come take the body away, he gave Judy and Nick a smile with too many teeth. “But then, that’s your job to figure that part out.”

Nick grumbled and hunched deeper into his jacket. Judy took the creepy barb in stride, moving just enough to let the attendants pass her with their stretcher and body bag. “The, uh… the face, then… removed after death had occurred?”

“Oh, certainly,” said Beltz, sliding his gloves off with clear relish and tossing them to a third attendant, a ram. “A knife of some kind. Come see me tomorrow and I’ll tell you everything you might ever want to know. Blade length, straight or curved, serrated or not, take your pick.

“For now, however.” He slid past the trio of police officers, a grimace passing over Nick’s features as his toes got trampled. “I have places to be and bodies to dig around in. Later, Chief.”

“What a lovely man,” said Nick’s mouth as they turned to watch him leave.

“What a skunk’s butt,” said Nick’s tail, lashing the snow in agitation. Eyeing it, Judy barely kept in a much-needed laugh.

“You heard the man,” said Bogo, following the sounds of slamming car doors and peeling tires. “Get to sleep, both of you. Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day. You’re going to need to be in top form for it.”

“Sir.” Judy followed the water buffalo out of the alley, returning the nods of other officers on the scene. “Sir, shouldn’t we stay here if Officer Wilde and I are heading up the investigation?”

Not even looking back at her, he said “We’re all but done here anyway, Hopps. Grizzoli and Johnson can finish up here and you can get their findings at their desks in the morning.”

“Sir—” Bogo whirled on Nick, some of the late hour and gruesome crime finally cracking through his stone exterior. Nick backed off a step, but otherwise held his ground remarkably well in Judy’s eyes. “Sir, the murder, the missing face, this… I don’t want to think about it, but could this be…?”

To Judy’s surprise, something softened in Bogo’s eyes. He huffed, not answering until he’d clambered into his cruiser and rolled his window down to speak clearly to them. “After all these years, it doesn’t seem likely. But then, even a copycat is more than I ever want happening to my city. You hear me, Wilde?”

Nick nodded, eyes narrow. “I hear you, sir.”

“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Try not to find any more dead bodies on the way to the bus, won’t you?”

Judy waited until the window was rolled back up and the cruiser was pulling away before looking back at her partner. The fox looked for all the world like they had just been handed their first homicide all over again. She entwined her fingers with his and gave his paw a squeeze. “Nick?”

He blinked, looked first at her and then all around, as if just coming back to himself. The cold street seemed to offer him no answer he wanted. “It’s freaking cold out here. “Come on, before we miss the bus. Again.”

“Nick—”

“At your apartment, Carrots, I promise. Please.”

***

Judy kept quiet on the walk down the three blocks to the nearest bus stop and the wait there for the bus. She kept quiet on the bus ride, sitting next to Nick with his arm over her shoulders and the blessed warmth of the bus’s lights feeling like such a relief after the neon and shadows of half an hour before. She kept quiet all through the shambling climb up the Grand Pangolin Arms stairs to her apartment floor, where even Bucky and Pronk had fallen into a blissfully quiet slumber.

1:36 AM, Judy’s internal clock howled at her as she stood at her apartment door for half a minute, fumbling for the right key. The adrenaline of finding a dead body had worn off somewhere on the bus, leaving only aching muscle memory and the longing for a soft bed and warm sheets.

Finally, the lock clicked and the door creaked open. Judy stuffed the keys back into her jacket and shuffled in, ears barely twitching as Nick followed behind and kicked the door shut with a slam.

“HEY! KEEP IT DOWN OVER THERE! SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO SLEEP!”

“SHUT UP! THEY HAD LONG DAY AND AREN’T THINKING RIGHT!”

“YOU SHUT UP!”

“NO, YOU SHUT UP!”

Judy tuned the quarrying couple out as she shrugged off her jacket and scarf, happy to leave the snow-soaked clothing where it fell until the morning. Yawning, she half-walked, half-tumbled over to her bed and slumped face-first onto it. Sleep beckoned to her like the mythical Sirens.

“Charming as always,” said Nick, flumping onto the bed beside her. “Such lovely voices… to fall asleep to…”

Despite every inch of her body telling her not to, Judy grunted and punched the fox’s shoulder. “No sleep until explanation. You promised.”

Nick groaned. The bed creaked as he rolled over onto his back, sending Judy tumbling against him. His arm held her tight, his heartbeat to her ears sounding worried, erratic. “It’s a bad story, Hopps.”

“I can take it, Wilde.”

“I mean it, Judy. This is really… really bad stuff.”

"I believe you. Now spill.”

A sigh. The bed creaked again as Nick dragged the topmost blanket over them. "It was before your time. Literally. I was 7, so you weren't even born yet, and damn if that doesn't make me feel old. Anyway, for about three or four months that year, there was a long series of killings. Brutal killings. The kind even little kids on the playground can't help but talk about like the latest generic slasher movie."

Judy felt some of the queasiness from before return and snuggled closer against the warmth of Nick's side. "And these killings... the victims all had their faces removed?"

"Yeah," said Nick, almost-but-not-quite sounding nostalgic. "That was the part that had schoolyards buzzing for weeks afterward. Well, that and the killer never being caught."

Judy perked her ears at this, almost bringing herself to sit up. "They were never caught!? No!"

"Yeah!" Nick said back, mimicking her shock. "One day, after nearly a killing a week for three months, they just... stopped. Nobody knew why. Or at least, nobody a 7-year-old fox from Happytown knew, heh."

"And now it's all happening again. Or I mean, might be happening again," she added after seeing the look Nick gave her. "Might. One homicide, no matter how... unique... isn't something to make snap judgments on. And 30 years is a long time for even the longest-lived of mammal species to wait between ki... between kills."

She felt Nick nod to this, the bottom of his chin brushing across the top of her head. "Right. And Original Flavor or copycat, there's at least one more killer loose in my city than I'm happy with."

"Listen to you," she mumbled between yawns, eyelids starting to lose the battle to stay open. "Sounding like... a real... responsible adult..."

He chuckled then, that light, honest laugh she adored, and pulled the blanket up higher. "You might... yawn... be to blame for that. Love you, Carrots."

"Love you too..."

***

The morning came too quickly, bringing with it the harsher cold of fresh snow, and fear. The basics of the murder were on every newspaper, news radio station, TV, and social site Nick cared to lay eyes on during the short bus ride from Judy’s apartment. Fellow passengers discussed it in their seats. The street-side barista down the street from the station went into wild gesticulations on it with every customer to visit the porcupine’s cart. Even the ever-dependable street “artists” had gotten into the act, one side of city hall covered in a spray-painted image of a featureless stalker, a bloody knife clenched in one paw.

“Oh, that is just disgusting!” Paws clenched and glare like steel as the pair of them crossed the road to the ZPD headquarters, Nick was surprised that the little rabbit didn’t grab the nearest hose and march over to help wash away from vandalism herself. “There’s a life that’s gone that… that WASN’T 24 hours ago! It’s a murder and a crime, not some artistic inspiration!”

“Let it go, Carrots. Some people deal with fear and stress in the weirdest ways.” Reaching the station entrance, Nick put on enough of a speed burst to reach the door first and hold it open for her. “Macabre as it is, at least that mural’s a decidedly non-violent act. The surrounding cameras surely caught everything, the idiot or idiots responsible will be brought in, and with any luck the next group of idiots will decide to vent somewhere not so eye-catching.”

“Right,” said Judy, not slowing as she marched into the ZPD lobby. “Because there’s gotta be some justice in the world.”

Nick rolled his eyes as he followed after his partner to the front desk, where for once the fat, lovable Clawhauser was giving more attention to fielding calls and giving reassurances to worried civilians than whatever sugar-filled cereal had caught his fancy that month. “Justice would be giving up the obvious information leak to Chief Buffalo Butt.”

Judy’s ears perked, despite his best efforts to mumble this below her range of hearing. The look she sent him over her shoulder gave Bogo a run for his money. “Nick! Clawhauser is too sweet for that!”

“What? All I’m saying is, reporters just don’t find this stuff out so fast without some kind of in with the people in charge. One of these days, those loose lips are gonna—”

An elbow to the gut convinced Nick to tighten his own lips, just as Clawhauser caught sight of them and perked up. “Nick! Judy! You two can’t do anything without getting into some kind of trouble, can you?”

“Afraid not,” said Nick, sliding on his conman’s smile as he leaned his weight against the countertop. “Say now, my favorite cheetah in the whole wide world, you wouldn’t happen to have any spare donuts back there, would you? The line at the barista is a mile long and it is cold as Hell out there.”

“Oh, sure thing, buddy!” Clawhauser ducked beneath the front desk for a moment, missing Judy’s eye roll and Nick’s answering shrug, before popping back up with half-full box of chocolate-sprinkled. “Here, they’re just from this morning. It, uh, it’s been a little too crazy in here to really eat them.”

Nick grabbed two, tossing one to Judy before downing half of his in one bite. “Mmph, dependable as ever, Benji my man.”

“Aww, thanks. And uh, you probably forgot, what with finding a dead body and all, but I’m really sorry for how awkward things got at your party last night. I really—”

A raised paw stopped the oncoming spiel. “Never even thought to hold it against you. Just keep on being you, man.”

“Ben, is the chief in the bullpen?” Judy had finished her donut while the pair talked and now hopped from foot to foot, the perfect picture of being ready to tackle the day. “Last night he said he was probably going to give us the big case, so we should probably try meeting with him ASAP.”

“Oh yeah, sure!” The cheetah jerked a thumb over his shoulder, not toward the bullpen, but to the stairs to the building’s second level. “He wanted to meet you in his office, actually. Man, he looked like he didn’t sleep a wink last night! Probably fielding phone calls all day, too.”

“No worries,” said Nick, smiling. “I think I can help with that.”

***

Chief Bogo looked tired. This was what Nick first noticed as he and Judy marched single file into the water buffalo’s office and closed the door at his command. More tired, certainly, than he recalled ever seeing him during the Night Howler case so many years ago. Dark circles sagged beneath his eyes, a slump to his shoulders and the distinct odor on his breath of coffee spiked with energy drink. With the lights dimmed and the curtains closed on his window behind him, Nick wouldn’t have been surprised if he fell from his chair at any moment.

“Hopps, Wilde, good, you’re here. Take a seat.”

Nick and Judy took the same chair, small enough to share it comfortably. Once settled there, Nick held out the chocolate-coated confection he’d grabbed minutes before. “Donut, sir? It’s got extra sprinkles!”

Bogo stared at the offered treat for a moment, while next to Nick Judy groaned and facepalmed. After a second, the water buffalo snorted and snatched the donut from Nick, devouring it with hardly a moment spent to chew. The fox stared, wondering how lucky he was to still have all his fingers. “Uh… happy to help, sir.”

“Shut it, Wilde.” Chief Bogo leaned back in his chair, eyes closing as he rubbed his temples. “I’ve got a three-hour nap scheduled soon, I want to get this over with. Hopps,” he said, making the rabbit jump where she sat. “Are you aware of the possible ramifications of what you and Wilde found last night?”

She nodded. “Nick filled me in on the serial killings a few decades ago, yes. I might have looked up some old news articles about them on the bus ride here. It’s… well sir, it’s gruesome stuff.”

“Hmph, gruesome indeed.” Bogo sat straighter in his chair, levelling them with a tired yet sturdy gaze. “For now, however, I want you both treating this just like any other homicide you’ve solved. No need giving those media vultures any more validation than they already have. Do your research, follow your leads, talk with Beltz down in the labs when you get the chance. Am I clear, officers?”

“Crystal, sir.”

Judy’s following salute was so respectful, so confident in the face of Bogo’s exhaustion and the media’s seeming bloodthirstiness, Nick couldn’t bring himself to make any snarky comment. And so he stood and saluted as well. “You can always count on us, sir.”

Bogo grumbled something that made Judy’s cheeks flush, before motioning for them to leave. Nick took the cue for what it was and left, waiting until his partner had closed the door behind them before letting his grin break through. “You know, five years into this job and I think he’s finally starting to like me.”


	3. Another Victim

Nick hated visiting the ZPD labs. Hated it with a passion matched only by his hate of going down to Records in the building's sub-basement. If asked why he disliked doing so, he'd struggle to give a thoroughly justifiable answer. The sterile white rooms of plastic, metal, and glass were never as cold as winters in Zootopia could get. There lingered no strange scents or the stench of the dead. The people working down in the labs, with the bitter exception of Doctor Beltz, acted nice enough whenever Nick had to make a visit down to them, though more in a professional manner than the easy comradery he had formed with the other police officers, the beat cops and detectives.

Judy had put it best one late night, halfway through some grainy B-movie featuring rubber monsters and flaxen-coated vixens. "There's no angle down there for you, ya dumb fox. One place in the world you can't hope to run any kind of con. The atmosphere doesn't allow it."

The so-called "atmosphere", as Judy had named it, was one of controlled tension, verging on exhaustion, that morning as Nick and Judy exited the elevator to a rush of cold (not freezing, never quite freezing) air and the hustle and bustle of polar bears and arctic foxes moving hither and yon on business Nick felt comfortable never thinking too deeply on. Moving through the close quarters, the pair found the object of their search far to the back of the labs, in one of the more private examination rooms.

"Dr. Beltz," started Judy, taking the lead as she so easily did, Nick in that instance more than happy to let her. "How'd your night go, sir?"

The honey-colored jackal looked up from the sheeted body he'd been looking over as they entered and, at the sight of them, sighed. "Good morning, Officer Hopps, Officer Wilde. I assume you're here for the antelope?"

"Indeed we are sir. Chief Bogo put us in charge of the investigation, and anything you can tell us would be of the utmost importance. No detail is too small."

The jackal made a noise somewhere deep in his throat that set Nick on edge. Hopping down from the stool he'd been sitting on, the coroner motioned for a trio of arctic hares waiting in the corner to come over and deal with the body. on his desk. In a flash they had the body moved over to a gurney to be wheeled out, and as they passed by the pair of cops one of them shot Judy what a generous soul might have called a sultry smile. Judy's response, leaning into Nick's side and wrapping her paw in his, sent the attempted suitor grumbling away and a flurry of butterflies through the fox's stomach. Maybe, he thought, coming down to the labs wasn't so bad that day.

"If I could have your attention," spoke Beltz in what was not quite a growl, causing both Nick and Judy to flinch and straighten up, Judy shooting the jackal an apologetic smile. He only huffed and rolled his eyes, stalking over to a row of freezers built into the far wall from the sliding glass doors. "So unprofessional... anyway, yes, I believe I was able to get more than a few juicy details from your body last night. If you could come over here…”

As the pair made their way over, Beltz unlocked and slid open a freezer, revealing the chilled remains of their antelope victim, cleaned and covered by a thin gauze sheet; even the head, to Nick’s relief.

Then the jackal lowered the sheet, revealing the victim’s head in all its skinned glory, and Nick was suddenly very glad he’d had no breakfast more substantial than a donut, as the urge to vomit came on strong.

“As you can see,” said Beltz, seeming completely unmoved by the bloody horror staring up at them as he began pressing against the exposed tissues with a pair of tweezers. “I’d applaud the killer’s skill with a knife, were it not put to such ghastly uses. Clean cuts along the muscle lines, leaving little damage to the underlying meat. No nicks against bone where it could be helped, and the eyes are remarkably intact.”

Grabbing a scalpel from a nearby tray, the doctor used one of the antelope’s horns to tilt her head to the left, allowing him to draw the scalpel along her right jawline, where the skin started back up again. “I believe this is where the killer started his or her work, making quick slices with his tip before working in deeper to—”

“Doctor,” spoke Judy, voice trembling to Nick’s alarm. Her face, too, looked an interesting shade of green through her fur. “I know I said that no detail is too small, but I think… I think we can manage the case fine without this… glowing tribute to barbarism.”

If Beltz felt any displeasure at his observations being so firmly dismissed, Nick couldn’t read it in the jackal’s eyes as he pulled the sheet back over the body’s head and slid the table back into the freezer. “Yes, well, I suppose there are more pertinent details to go over. Such as the murder weapon, to start with.”

Nick blinked at this, exchanging a look with a similarly-surprised Judy. “No offense, but I kind of figured all that talk last night was hyperbol—ow!”

Beltz acted as if his heavy tread hadn’t come anywhere close to Nick’s toes as he shuffled over to another corner of the examination room. “Hyperbole kills, fox. Which puts more bodies on tables and leaves me over-worked. I deal only in truth.”

“You mean death,” said Nick as he followed after the jackal, earning him another elbow to the gut from Judy.

“Death, as much as we might like to ignore it, as the truest truth. There’s certainly no lying in it.” Picking up a chart from a counter, Beltz turned to face them. “Let’s see here. The killer used a fine tool for his work. 7-inch-blade, less than a pound in weight, mostly a straight edge, but with a curve to a point toward the end. Possessed of a small crossguard as well, I suspect.”

Judy spoke the disbelief that Nick felt. “That’s… quite specific. I can sorta imagine the other stuff, but how’d you figure the weapon having a crossguard?”

Beltz set the chart down, moving now to open a case sitting on the counter “Something like that affects the way a knife can be held. The wrist has to accommodate for it, especially for the more… detailed, work. Here, I took the liberty of making an approximation with the lab’s 3D printer.”

Nick caught the thrown weapon, making a mental note to have Judy tell Bogo about his chief medical examiner’s penchant for workplace safety violations, before joining his partner in looking over the faux-murder weapon. “Hmm, yep, that’s a knife. And what a lovely shade of off-white plastic, too.”

“Ceramic,” said Judy, taking the knife from Nick and bouncing it in her palm. The weapon looked comically over-sized in her paws. “Seven inches… that narrows things down some. Can’t imagine a mammal as big as a lion or small as a fennec fox going for something like this.”

“Unless they were relying on that kind of assumption to keep them out of the spotlight.” Nick took the knife back from her and tested it in his own palm. Even for him, though, the weapon seemed a little on the large side. “Still, subterfuge like that still has to answer to plain, ol’ practicality.”

“If there’s nothing else,” said Beltz, drawing their attention back to him, “perhaps you could be on your way? There is, after all, a HOMICIDE investigation waiting for you upstairs.”

“Right! Come on, Nick. Let’s get to those reports Johnson and Grizzoli made!”

“Right behind you, Carrots.” Following the eager rabbit to the door, eager himself to get back to the relative warmth and freshness of the air upstairs, Nick gave a parting wave and smirk over his shoulder. “Later, Doc. We should do this again sometime.”

And then, lower, low enough that only Judy and the returning arctic hares could hear him, “Sometime a long, long time from now.”

*

Sitting at their shared desk on the station’s second floor, near the building’s front windows where they could look out on the snow-blanketed square beyond and its countless pedestrians, Nick and Judy poured over the reports left for them by Johnson and Grizzoli. Or at least, Judy poured over them, Nick leaning back in his chair to better listen and form his own thoughts.  
“A thorough search of the victim’s purse found a wallet and driver’s license. Honey Germaine, a waitress at the Palm Hotel in Sahara Square.”

“Ritzy place. Too secure for me and Finnick to ever run any cons in. What’s an antelope like that doing in Tundratown?”

Judy glanced further down the page. “Looks like she had an elk boyfriend living over there. Michael Erentil.”

“Something to look into later. Back to the crime scene?”

“Right. A few vague footprints not belonging to us or the victim were found in the alley, but the constant snow had rendered it impossible to estimate the person’s exact size or species. On-scene forensics estimated the time of death somewhere between 11 and 11:10 that night. That’s… only a few minutes before we found her, at best.”

Nick thought back to his and Judy’s walk down that street and winced. “We were practically right there when it happened. I don’t remember anyone else walking the streets, though. That fire escape we saw in the alley?”

The sound of rustling paper and a quick country curse. “Johnson found disturbed snow near the top. The likely escape route once the… once the deed was done.”

A minute of silence passed. Nick sat up in his chair to see Judy, his Judy, the best little bunny in the world, slumped in her seat and staring down at the desk with tear-glazed eyes. Recognizing the look at once after all their years of working together, he rolled his chair over and without warning dragged her over onto it, holding her close and wrapping his tail around her. “Judy… don’t let it get to you. Come on, that’s not what you need. And it’s not what Miss Honey Germaine needs either.”

“I know…” she used his tail to wipe away the tears from her face, an act Nick had long since resigned himself to tolerating. “It’s just… it never gets any easier for me, you know?”

“I know, I know…” Nick rubbed the back of her neck, practiced paws doing their best to work away the tension. “I’d be worried for the both of us if it ever did start getting easier for you. Bunnies, so emotional.”

The third blow to his gut that day, this time committed via fist rather than elbow, was accompanied by the wet, throaty chuckle Nick had been hoping for. “There we go,” he said, unfurling his tail and edging away in the name of feigned professionalism. “There’s the bunny I love.”

Judy blushed and glanced around the cubicles, but the few other officers to be seen there were all busy on their computers or taking phone calls and paid the pair little mind. “Niiick…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Leave it at home.” Stretching, Nick hopped off his chair and began sliding on his jacket. “If there’s nothing else major in the report, I guess this is where the legwork starts. I give this boyfriend a visit while you shop around, see who might have sold a knife like that recently?”

Judy skimmed through the remaining pages of the report, nodded, and after jumping back over to her chair, joined Nick in putting on her jacket. “Add in you casing the victim’s house out to see if she might have had any problems leading up to this and that sounds like a plan.

“Although,” she added, giving him a playful glare. “Thanks for saddling me with the bigger workload, Wilde.”

“Hey, I’m the one who has to talk to a possibly grief-stricken elk.” Throwing on his shades, Nick performed his most aggravating strut toward the stairwell. “And besides, how many knife shops could there be in Zootopia?”

*

"Seventeen shops, Nick! SEVENTEEN! Of all the rotten summer—"

The screech and thunder of the cross-Zootopia train coming to a stop in the Meadowlands station and disgorging its passengers drowned out Judy's long-practiced storm of Bunnyburrow swears to her own ears. Nick's response, however, came through the smartphone loud and clear. "Golly, Judes. You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

Judy bit back another choice swear for the sake of those crowding around her on the platform. She settled for a grunt as she danced her way through the blind legs of fellow commuters, barely managing to snag a seat before the doors closed and the train jerked into motion. For a moment she basked in the blessedly warm air of the train car after the frigid gusts of the Meadowlands district, before returning her mind to the task at hand. "Don't test me, Wilde. Not after the day I've just had."

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry." His voice came softer over the phone, warm and comforting like a favorite brand of caramel. "Start from the beginning. You said seventeen knife shops?"

"Knife and gun, yeah. Twenty-two, counting a few hardware and fishing supply stores I got pointed in the direction of." She glanced left and right, checking that nobody was eavesdropping; obviously, at any rate. "I can't imagine why there could possibly be a need for that many stores. What would mammals even use big knives like this for? Extreme Darts?"

A chuckle over the line, and then, "Gator hunting, mostly. Those biters used to be a major menace over in the Marshlands and Canal District, though nowadays its mostly sport. And for some jobs, bear claws and lion jaws just don’t cut it. Pardon the pun. Heh, ol’ Finnick and I used to make quite the killing selling ‘authentic alligator skin’ vests and belts, before we decided to move to ventures where losing a limb wasn’t a daily risk. Well, less of a daily risk, anyway.”

Judy couldn’t stop herself from asking “Right, but it wasn’t really alligator skin, right?”

“Of course not,” said Nick. There came a moment’s pause. “It was crocodile.”

Judy laughed. On the outside it was a quick little giggle, befitting an officer in uniform heading back to the station after a long, trying day. On the inside, however, she guffawed, roared, and very nearly literally bust a gut. Something about the banal absurdity of it, the plain matter-of-factness with which Nick presented it as just another of his conman ventures, struck a nerve somewhere in Judy she’d never realized had been there. If she ever found the courage to show her partner off in Bunnyburrow, this was a story she knew her father had to hear.

“Excuse me, officer?”

Returning her attention to the wider world, Judy found a smartly-dressed snow leopard standing in front of her, a soft, if slightly stressed, smile on her face. A fluffy cub in a pink hoodie stood next to her, barely old enough to stand on his own while holding her hand. “Oh! Hello, ma’am, is there a problem?”

“Not at all, officer,” the snow leopard replied, shifting from foot to foot as she spoke. “Sorry to distract you from your call, but I was hoping if it’d be alright for you to watch little Thomas here while I use the restroom? There’s really no room in the proper-sized one for both of us, and the ones for larger mammals are all occupied—”

“Oh no no, it’s no problem at all!” Judy switched her phone to her off-hand and took one of the snow leopard cub’s hands in her lead hand, to the mother’s clear relief. “We’ll be right here when you get back, ma’am!”

“Oh, thank you so much, officer! I won’t be long, I promise! You be a good boy now, Thomas, Mommy will be right back!”

With a quick ruffle of the boy's head, the snow leopard turned and rushed off down the length of the train car. Judy watched her go for a moment, before returning her attention to her phone. "Well that was sweet."

"There you are, Carrots. I was beginning to think the call was dropped. What's up?"

"Nothing," she said, giving the cub a smile that he tentatively returned. "Just performing my civic duty, watching a kid while the mom takes care of some business. But anyway, I’m on my way now from the Meadowlands with the firm conclusion that checking the knife stores has been a bust. Please tell me checking on the boyfriend and the victim’s house turned up something?”

A soft sigh. Judy could almost picture Nick shrinking into his chair at the office. “Not a thing. The boyfriend had been holed up in his house all morning, apparently having found out the terrible details through FurBook. Poor bastard looked to have been sobbing his heart out for hours.”

Judy pulled the cub closer as an antelope in a heavy coat stalked past. “And it wasn’t an act?”

“Hey, who do you think you’re talking to? And besides, the plethora of wrecked electronics around the house would make it for a very expensive con. No, I think the guy’s clean. In for a rough life going ahead, but clean.”

The clock inside Judy’s head ticked over. She began bouncing a foot against the seat, gaze switching between the train car aisle and the cub, who seemed preoccupied with trying to touch his tongue between his eyes. “I don't envy him. And the victim’s apartment?”

“About as useless a trip as the boyfriend. Lot of booze in the fridge, some probably-legal pills in the bathroom, some cute yoga pants I think I’d look absolutely dashing in. Not even any mentions of thinking she was being followed in the diary I swear was open when I got there. The strangest thing to be said, and it's probably nothing, is a note she made about a week ago of a role of film she'd taken to get developed going missing from the store.”

Judy’s leg picked up its pace as she craned her neck to see down the train car. “Hm. The person working that might need to be talked to.”

“Hey, Carrots, you sound distracted. Everything okay over there?”

“I’m… not sure. I’ll call you back.”

“What—”

Judy hit END on the call and slid the smartphone back into her pants pocket, before hopping down off her seat. She looked to the cub, putting on the voice and smile she’d use for her own child siblings. “Hey there, little guy! Let’s go find your mom, okay?”

“Okay, Miss Police Officer.”

A piece of Judy’s heart broke at that sweet, trusting voice. Keeping a firm hold of the cub’s paw, the cub that already stood as tall as her, Judy wound her way toward the restroom she thought she’d seen the snow leopard heading for. As she went she noticed a cheetah standing outside it, knocking with increasing frustration at the door.

“Come on, lady, you’ve been in there for hours! This ain’t some private relaxation chamber, other people have gotta—what the!?”

Judy saw it at nearly the same moment the rapidly back-pedaling cheetah did, and already her free hand was going for the radio strapped to her bulletproof vest.

A growing pool of blood seeped from beneath the restroom door, staining red all it touched.


	4. A Horrid Truth

“Horror rocked the city of Zootopia again last night, upon the discovery of yet another grizzly murder scene.

“Mrs. Adelaide Charmer, a snow leopard, was found brutally murdered in the private restroom of a cross-Zootopia train as it made its rounds. This comes only one day after the murder of Miss Honey Germaine, an antelope. Both victims were found with their faces removed, reminding many of the brutal Wendigo serial killings some 30 years ago.”

“Coincidentally, both recent murders were discovered by rising ZPD star Judy Hopps, who viewers will remember for her solving of the Night Howler—”

Chief Bogo sent cracks through the TV as he slammed his fist into the power button, leaving the police bullpen silent once more. The eyes of every officer and detective in the room focused on the battered machine as it was wheeled out by Clawhauser, or on the silently-seething water buffalo as he made a show of shuffling through some papers on his stand at the room’s front, or else on the bunny sitting still as stone at her usual place at the front of the room, her own eyes forward and paws clasped in front of her, radiating her self-loathing for all in the room to feel. It took all of Nick’s not-inconsiderable willpower to not simply grab hold of his partner sitting beside him and vault out of the room, secreting her away to somewhere safe and private so she could at least be able to wallow in her misery in peace.

Finally, Chief Bogo looked up, drawing all eyes to him as he scanned the room. “That makes it two murders. Two murders in as many days. Absolutely unacceptable.”

Chairs creaked throughout the room. Nick noticed Judy slump lower into her chair and barely kept from growling.

“Zootopia is a good city,” Chief Bogo continued. “It’s a flawed city, a broken city, but a strong and ultimately good one. Every cop in this room has to believe that, or else the whole job becomes a pointless exercise!”

BANG.

Judy shot back to full attention, while elsewhere several officers flinched. Bogo’s stand shuddered from the impact of his fist. “Murders like this do not just happen in our city! Not on any of our watches! Not again! Assignments! Hopps, Wilde, you will continue to lead the investigation. Every resource the ZPD has to offer will be at your disposal. Considering the similarity of the crimes, it looks safe to assume we are dealing with a copycat of the Wendigo Killer. Get down to records and dig something up!

“Wolford, Fangmeyer, get down to Beltz and see if there’s anything new to be gleaned from the departed Mrs. Charmer. Officers Francine, Del Gato, and Johnson, talk with the husband, see if she might’ve known she was in danger, if she had any enemies, if she ever stiffed a waiter of a single God-damned penny. The rest of you, same assignments as yesterday, so get to work!”

A chorus of shouts, howls, and roars rang out through the room, Nick joining in for once when he noticed Judy remaining silent. Afterward he waited until the larger mammals had walked past before jumping from his chair, frowning as she remained where she sat, gazing still at nothing. “Carrots? Come on, Hopps, we’ve got a job to do, bad guys to catch, all that stuff you love… Judy?”

She flinched in her seat and looked over at him, the added height of the chair bringing them about equal for once. “What? I, oh, yeah, right…” She hopped down, giving him a trembling smile. “The… the Records, right?”

After a moment Nick nodded, worry gnawing away at him as his partner turned and headed for the door. He glanced over at Bogo still at the stand as he followed after her, the chief giving him the briefest, tiniest of nods. Permission, then. That was new, but Nick wasn’t going about to complain.

He waited until they had said some parting words to the few officers lingering outside the bullpen, until they’d passed by Clawhauser pouring over a number of newspapers at the front desk, until they were in the stairwell and halfway down the three flights to the whole floor dedicated to Records, before stopping the rabbit with a paw on her shoulder and spinning her around to face him.

“Nick, what are you—”

He pulled her against him, arms and tail encircling her so-much-smaller body as he hugged her for all he was worth. “It wasn’t your fault, Judy.”

“Stop it, I’m fi—”

He hugged her tighter, trying to get her to understand. “It wasn’t your fault, Judy.”

“Stop it, Nick, please, just… just…”

She began trembling in his hold and he pressed his face down into the top of her head, rubbing between her ears as a paw caressed her back. “It wasn’t your fault, Judy.”

She pushed him away then, her strength surprising for her size. He flinched from her teary glare. “You don’t know that! You weren’t there! You didn’t have to see the body, fresh and still bleeding, with your own eyes and have to remain calm while everybody around you panicked! You didn’t have to control the crime scene by yourself for the two and a half minutes it took for the train to reach its next stop and let in help! You didn’t have to comfort a cub sobbing for his mother for half an hour until the father managed to show up, all while enduring the endless flashing of hundreds of vultures want, want… wanting to get a pic of the hero cop’s f-fa-failure for their blog, or news report, or j-j-just their own p-private collection! You… you don’t know…”

Judy initiated the embrace this time, lunging to wrap her arms around Nick’s waist and bury her head into his chest. Once more he wrapped his arms and tail around her, saying nothing as she sobbed against him, making no promises that it would all be better. There would be time for those later, he thought.

Eventually, the tears ran dry, leaving the rabbit gasping for breath, almost laughing. Reluctantly, only managing to do so with the fear that someone might come through and see them and make assumptions, Nick unwrapped his tail from her and, leaving his paws on her shoulders, shifted until they stood an arm’s length away. He looked her up and down, not quite happy with what he saw, understanding he could be seeing so much worse. “Feeling better?”

She gave a quick nod after a moment, looking almost embarrassed. “I kinda feel like I shouldn’t, though. The victims are still dead. The cub’s still motherless.”

“True,” he said, moving to have one arm over her shoulders as he began guiding them down the stairs again. “Whether you’re at the top of your game or a miserable wreck, all that’s still how things are. So, all else being equal, let’s try to keep the attitude that’ll at least help bring these people some justice, yeah? At work, anyway. Off hours and you can use my toned chest to dry your tears all you need.”

She let out a laugh, a fragile sound, and nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Let’s get a move on, then. There’s work to do.”

*

Nick hated visiting Records, though not to quite the same extent as he hated visiting the ZPD CSI labs a floor below. The dusty, often musty smell of the place played havoc with his sensitive fox senses, hammering his mind with the scent of old wood, old wax, and old paper stretching back nearly to the founding of the ZPD itself.

Nick and Judy found themselves a secluded table in a side room far in the back of the place, and there began working their way through the Wendigo case files the porcupine assistant had taken 20 minutes to find.

“Let’s see here. ‘The Wendigo killings lasted from mid-May to late-July, the summer of 1986,’” read off Nick from an official summary report as he paced the length of the room, Judy at the table beside him sorting through grainy photos of long-gone crime scenes and forgotten victims. “Hm… ‘In total, 11 deaths were investigated, ranging across a wide spectrum of mammals, with no clear connection or motive to be discovered by investigating detectives. The locations of the crimes were equally varied, from back alleys to hotel suites, leaving little doubt to the murderer’s possible reach.’ Well, nothing about the killings reaching as far as Bunnyburrow, at least.”

“Not something I even want to consider, Wilde.”

A rustle of turning pages and a cough. “Right, sorry. ‘The identity and species of the murderer, named the Wendigo Killer by the media, were never discovered, but from the general size of his victims and the method behind what would become his signature, experts have estimated him to most likely have been a medium to large predator.’ Hmph. What, a dainty little lamb can’t use a knife?”

No snarky comment at Bellwether’s expense came. Nick stopped his pacing and looked over to the table, where Judy looked decidedly green in the face. “Carrots?”

Judy swallowed and closed her eyes, sliding a series of photos down the table toward Nick. “I don’t think the killer had quite the same technique 30 years ago…”

Nick lifted an eyebrow, trudged over to give the photos a look, and immediately knew that he would not be having lunch that day. “Oh God…”

The 11 photos, taken by the coroner of those days in the harsh, artificial light of the labs, showed each of the 11 original victims on the slab, ranging from a high school-aged llama to a lion greyed with age. Each also showed that the faces had not been sliced off with near-surgical precision, but rather chewed off. Messily.

“Well,” said Judy, as Nick shuffled through the photos. “There’s… there’s one difference at least between the old and new killings. Could be good evidence this is a copycat and not the original.”

“Or just a sign the original’s gotten smart,” said Nick. “The change in technique makes sense for someone wanting to get back into the game. A tool like a knife easily makes up for any lost vigor over the decades. And besides, with fur and DNA identification where it is, the chance of leaving behind saliva to be analyzed is too—”

Nick’s thoughts stumbled to a stop as he came upon a photo of a red fox on the examination table. Mid-30s, he guessed from the general physique, tall and lanky for a fox male, the fur a noticeably bright shade of red, the tail tipped with black. “I don’t… remember any fox victims mentioned in the news…”

A low growl left Judy. “Stupid Zootopian speciesism… Nick? You don’t look good. Do you need to get some fresh air?”

Nick ignored the question, looking from the photo to his own tail and then back to the photo, harder to examine now from the tremble in his paws. “C-Carr… Judy… where’s the coroner report for this photo? What’s the date?”

A glimmer of the inkling Nick felt appeared in the rabbit’s eyes, equal parts terror and disbelief. Turning from him she dug through the scattered papers, eventually bringing one up to read it in the light of the table lamp. A second after that she gulped and looked back up at him, though from her eyes and scent he already knew the answer. “June 8.”

The photo fell from Nick’s hold, to be forgotten on the carpeted floor. He staggered backward until he hit the wall, breathing ragged, chest hurting, world going lopsided around him. “Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God! OH GOD!”

Soft thumping came from one of his legs. There stood a rabbit, a rabbit he should of known, hitting him, saying something. Then, shouting something. He couldn’t hear over the rush of air and blood and pounding in his head. He pushed her away and staggered forward. His belly hit one of the chairs surrounding the table.

The next thing Nick remembered he was sitting on his tail on the floor. Judy was at the door, talking in urgent, pleading whispers to the porcupine working Records that day. A chair lay in shambles next to him. The wall opposite the table from him possessed several chair-ish dents he didn’t remember it having before. “Oh God.”

The whispering stopped as both porcupine and rabbit turned to look at him. Judy shot the Records worker one last look of warning before closing the door and hopping over, immediately grabbing one of Nick’s arms and pulling. “Come on, Slick Nick. Places to go, crimes to stop.”

“My dad, Carrots. My old man. Not abandoned. Murdered.” A part of Nick knew he probably should have been concerned with the utter calmness he was feeling at that moment. “All this time.”

Judy paused in her pulling, paws digging painfully into Nick’s arm. “That certainly seems, um, to be the case. I’m really, really sorry, Nick. This must be awful. I can’t imagine…”

That explained the numbness then, Nick thought. He didn’t know how to feel about it either, once he’d gotten beyond the white-knuckle rage. For so long he’d hated his father, thought him no more than a no-good bastard that gave foxes a bad name, even after he himself became the kind of fox to give others a bad name. To realize he’d been wrong to hate like that this whole time…

Judy gave another tug on his arm. This time Nick let himself be pulled up. He looked to the broken chair and the smashed wall and felt his cheeks heat up. “I’m sorry, I… Judy.” He grabbed her shoulders, leaning down to look her in the eyes. “Please, please don’t let anybody know about this. Not Chief Bogo, not Clawhauser, not… not anybody! Please!”

“Of course, Nick!” Brushing his paws off her shoulders, she turned and started gathering up the photos and papers tossed about by the fox’s episode. “They’d take you off the case if it got out you had a personal stake in it like this! Regulation or not, I couldn’t do that to you. Not after, well… after everything you’ve done for me. It’s what friends are for.”

Nick tried to return her smile, tried to let her know how much this small act meant to him. From the dimming of her gaze, the slow downturn of her lips, he knew he failed, and miserably at that. Instead he coughed and reverted to his old conman tactics, stuffing the hurt and pain and oh-God-he’d-have-to-tell-Mom-later somewhere far in the back of his mind. Good to deal with sometime he wasn’t on the clock and there wasn’t a killer to catch.

“So,” he said at last, flinching from the rawness in his own voice. “Is there anything else to go through down here? Medical reports, eyewitness testimonies, maybe a lucky fortune cookie?”

Judy sighed and stepped away, back to the table and its mounds of papers. “There’s still a lot of this to go through. We could be here all day and night if we don’t start doing this smart. What’s most important of all this? What helps whether we’re dealing with a copycat or the original Wendigo Killer?”

“Who do we know who we could reliably pay to read all this for us?”

Judy shot Nick a glare. He shrugged, acting as if it didn’t hurt as he bent down to pick up the fallen photo of his father’s body from the floor. “Right, not one of my best, sorry. Not like I don’t have good—”

Judy’s phone began ringing, sending Nick’s mouth shut with a click. Giving him one last look, half-annoyed and half-concerned, she drew her smartphone from its pocket and answered. “Hey Clawhauser, what’ve you got?”

Nick watched as Judy’s face performed several fascinating gymnastic feats in the span of several seconds. Unable to quite make out what the friendly cheetah had called about, it was the best he had to go on until the call ended. Even then she sat there in silence for several seconds, staring off at nothing with the most disbelieving look on her face. “Uh… Judy? What was the call?”

She jerked back to attention, jumping to the table to begin shoving papers and photos back into their boxes. “Get all this stuff packed back up, Nick! Come on, we can take it home with us and look it over on our own time!”

Eyebrow raised, Nick stuffed his father’s photo into a pocket and then joined the rabbit at the table. “Ben had good news, then. That’s a change of pace. What, did Wolford or Francine come back with a lead?”

The smile she turned to give him threatened to slip her face in half. “Even better. We’ve got ourselves a witness!”

*

Nick tried not to stare. He tried harder than he’d tried at anything before in his life, with the possible exception of trying (and failing) to beat Judy’s QCC scores in the police academy. The clouded leopard sitting across the table from him and Judy, alternately fiddling with the strings of his hoodie and the box in his lap as if they were his most solid friends in the world, was probably nervous enough without having police officers staring. But then, considering the nature of their latest case, Nick couldn’t help but ponder the significance of nearly two-thirds of the witness’s head being a gnarled mess, a patchwork of scar tissue and off-white fur from below his chin to a mangled right ear, all centered around a right eye as cloudy-grey as the storm brewing outside. A far cry from the sparkling green of his left eye.

“It’s okay if you want to stare,” the clouded leopard said with a bit of a smile, making Nick flush as he realized he’d been doing just that. “I’ve had people staring most of my life. It really doesn’t bother me, anymore.”

“We’re very sorry,” said Judy, echoing Nick’s thoughts. “It, um, it’s not insensitive if we ask…”

“Hunting accident,” the clouded leopard said, easy as answering a question about the weather. And again with that smile. “Those Marshland gators can be killers if you’re careless.”

“Right…” Nick shared a look with Judy, cleared his throat, and flipped open a book for taking notes. “Well, you said you believe you saw the killer last night, Mr…”

“Oh! Uh, Monahan. Taylor Monahan.” Again came that little smile, embarrassed almost as he lifted the box from his lap and set it on the table. “And well, not me personally, but my camera.”

Unasked, Nick pulled the box over to him and opened it, revealing what looked even at a glance to be a high-end piece of video recording equipment the general size of his head. “Woof. I don’t think even a month’s salary could get me one of these.”

Taylor nodded. “Took most of my savings, but it was worth it. Able to record nearly 12 hours at a time with instant playback, night vision said to be nearly as good as a fox’s, infrared, and sound capturing that can keep a mouse’s whispers as easy as an elephant’s…” He paused, the unmarred side of his face blushing at the looks Nick and Judy were giving him. “Sorry, I… I get long-winded on my passions. Been into filmmaking since before I enlisted.”

Something told Nick to file that away for later. As he continued fiddling with the camera, trying to get it to turn on, Judy kept the questioning going. “So, what were you doing out and about that late into the evening with your camera, Mr. Monahan?”

“Filming,” he replied, taking the camera back with a smile. With the press of a few buttons the attached screen on the camera’s side lit up, showing a placid river, its banks covered in snow turned brown from the trodding of many mammals. High above the river ran a bridge for the cross-Zootopia trains. “You know those dumb political commercials you see every election with people smiling or looking sad, beautiful shots of cities, junk like that? My website has tons of it for sale. Dumb work, but it pays the bills.”

“Amen to that,” said Nick, taking the offered camera back. Leaning over so Judy could watch as easily as him, Nick hit the clearly marked PLAY button.

At first, they saw nothing out of the ordinary. The late evening sun glinted off the water, birds called in the distance, a rhino couple went trundling past with a stroller. It was a sight Nick could easily imagine playing as some mayoral hopeful decried the economy.

Then, as the sun dimmed further, a red and grey cargo boat entered the frame from upriver, heading at a leisurely pace toward the bridge. Nick’s eyes narrowed as the train whistle sounded a few seconds later, the edge of it coming into view as it sped along the tracks. Just as the boat began to pass under the bridge, a dark figure of some sort clearly dropped from the train into the nearby waters, the video ending just as the figure appeared to start climbing onto the boat.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get anything clearer, Monahan said after a moment’s silence. “I honestly didn’t think anything of it beyond maybe some poor mammal not wanting to pay the full ticket price. But then the news this morning, about the murder—”

“You did fine, Mr. Monahan,” said Judy, voice warm and smile shining. Nick thought she looked ready to vibrate through her chair. “This is more than we ever could have helped for.”

“Right,” said Nick, eyeing the cargo boat in the frozen image and already trying to think of who could have a ship like that. “What she said. Um, I hope you don’t mind if we keep hold of this for…” He gave the camera a quick shake. “Evidence. At least until we get the video off of it?”

Monahan grimaced, but shook his head. “If it’s for the case… I’ll get it back once this is all over though, right?”

“Most certainly,” said Judy, while Nick made a show of testing the camera’s weight like he’d seen many a buyer do. The rabbit hopped from her chair and went to the clouded leopard’s side. “I’ll show you out, Mr. Monahan. Please, be aware we may call you back in at any time for further questioning, so try not to make any plans outside of Zootopia if you can help it. Nick,” she said, turning to him just as he returned the recording equipment back to its box. “If you could get that to the labs, maybe?”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Nick hopping from his chair, box in his arms. As he landed an idea struck him, the kind of inspiration or urge that got him through many a failing con. “Hey, Officer Hopps, what say after this we give our biggest friend a visit?”


	5. Victims Past

_“Name: Fabian Lope._   
_“Species: sable antelope._   
_“Age: 24._   
_“Gender: male._   
_“Profession: radio DJ and graduate student at Zootopia Tech._   
_“Found mauled to death in a Grand Rapids Casino restroom, May 17th, 1986. The first victim of what would become known as the Wendigo Killer.”_

_“Name: Anna Pratorious._   
_“Species: leopard._   
_“Age: 49._   
_“Gender: female._   
_“Profession: private chef for Mayor Pango._   
_“Found mauled to death in back storeroom of victim’s favored grocery retailer, Merry Munchings, on May 25th, 1986. The second victim of the Wendigo Killer.”_

_“Name: Peter Wolfwood._   
_“Species: timber wolf._   
_“Age: 17._   
_“Gender: male._   
_“Profession: student at Meadowlands High School, quarterback for Meadowland Marauders._   
_“Found mauled to death beneath the bleachers of the high school’s pawball field, June 1st, 1986. The third victim of the Wendigo Killer.”_

_“Name: James Wilde._   
_“Species: red fox._   
_“Age: 30._   
_“Gender: male._   
_“Profession: owner of Suitopia, a clothing store catering to predators and prey._   
_“Found mauled to death in Happytown back alley, June 8th, 1986. The fourth victim of the Wendigo Killer.”_

_“Name: Elsa Shrewder._   
_“Species: yak._   
_“Age: 34._   
_“Gender: Male to Female trans._   
_“Profession: lawyer for Wolf, Ram, & Hart Law Practices._   
_“Found mauled to death in the park surrounding Little Rodentia, June 14th, 1986. The fifth victim of the Wendigo Killer.”_

*

“I don’t like this, Judy. I don’t like this at all.”

Keeping her eyes on the road, hard enough to see as it was through the Tundratown snow storm, Judy raised an eyebrow at her partner’s sudden worry. Not that she wasn’t glad to hear it. The forced calm and false cheer he’d displayed ever since his freak out in Records had been unnerving. “What do you mean, ‘don’t like this’? Visiting Mr. Big was your idea.”

Sitting in the police cruiser’s passenger seat, Nick took time off from watching poor mammals braving the fitful bursts of snow and howling winds outside to roll his eyes. “Not about Mr. Big. Though yeah, I don’t think a day will come I’m not at least a little uncomfortable visiting the most powerful crime boss in Tundratown. Almost being killed by him tends to do that to a reasonable person.”

“Which explains why I’m not nervous?”

Nick shot her a quick smirk that never reached his eyes. “Good one. But no, what’s bugging me is Monahan. It just seems so… convenient. I’d have aborted a con at the first sight of this kind of good fortune.”

The cruiser shuddered over a wind-formed bank of snow in the road. Judy turned onto a smaller pathway, a dark and towering structure slowly emerging out of the haze far ahead of them. “Police work isn’t a con, Nick. You should know that sometimes, lucky breaks just happen. Remember the first case we partnered up on? What were the chances of you being the last known person to have seen Mr. Otterton? What were the chances of both of you being familiar with Mr. Big? Heck, what were the chances of Mayor Lionheart meeting with his doctor right as we were there to record it?”

“And on the flipside to that,” said Nick, turning to look at his partner, “what are the chances of Mayor Bellwether just happening to be in the natural history museum as we were making our escape through it to the ZPD?” At her frown he nodded. “That’s right, no chances at all, because she’d been called ahead of time and was waiting for us in one last-ditch effort to trick us. So no, color me suspicious of Monahan just showing up out of the blue.”

A tall stone and metal fence emerged from the storm ahead of them. A towering, heavily built polar bear in a heavy coat waited for them at an arching gateway, waving them through with hardly a glance. Judy gave him a wave and a smile anyway before returning to business. “There’s no angle, though! Say he’s associated with the killer, knew what was going to go down yesterday evening. Why record it and bring it to the police?”

Try as he might, Nick couldn’t think of an answer he felt satisfied enough with to give Judy. Sighing, he turned back to watching the snow through the window. The rest of the car ride passed in silence as they drove to the circular front of Mr. Big’s mansion. They found another polar bear waiting there for them as they parked and climbed out. Nick smiled at the sight of a familiar face. “Raymond! Good to see you, old buddy! How’s the missus treating ya?”

The polar bear rolled his eyes and turned to the mansion’s front door, the towering oak doors big enough to comfortably fit an elephant through. “Come. Boss waits for you in kitchen. Came just in time to try fresh batch of winter cannoli.”

A dozen half-eaten faces flashed before Nick’s eyes, his father’s last and most lingering, causing him to share a grimace with Judy. “We’ll, uh, we’ll see how that goes. This case we’re on is a… a pretty gruesome one.”

They followed the polar bear through the house, Nick for once paying little attention to the armed guards lurking in discreet corners and signs of illicit business hastily hidden away from visiting police eyes, contenting himself with watching Judy’s usual awe at the filthy rich trappings to distract from the heavier thoughts of the day. Oil paintings, ancient books, and furniture of the highest craftsmanship never seemed to get old to the rabbit.

They found Mr. Big in the mansion kitchen as Raymond had promised, sitting in his customary chair next to microwaves and toasters and drinking via bendy straw from a polar bear-sized mug of the most delicious-smelling hot chocolate Nick had ever smelled. He might have started drooling, were the guards to either side of the kitchen island not liable to clean up the floor with his face.

“Ahhh, Judy, my child. It is a pleasure to see you as always.” He and the bunny exchanged kisses to the cheek, before he turned and gave a less than overjoyed look to Nick. “And Nicky, you seem to still be in one piece. Hmm. I hope you have been treating the godmother to my granddaughter well.”

Nick’s throat suddenly felt all too dry as every eye turned to him. “Well, uh, as well as I possibly can, sir. With the exception of that uh, ultimate act of care, if you know what I mean.”

“Hmm, yes.” The tiny Arctic shrew swiveled his chair to look back to Judy. “And what brings Zootopia’s star police officers to my abode on this, a day of most deplorable weather? I certainly hope you do not believe me to be in any way connected to that evil Wendigo business.”

Judy blanched, eyes widening as if a gun had been pointed at her. “Oh, no! Not at all, never! That is absolutely the farthest from anything we’d ever suspect!”

“Remember to breathe, Judy.”

The growl from Raymond behind him, Nick thought, was worth it as Judy followed his advice. She took a deep breath before pulling a photo from a pocket and showing it to the crime boss. “This is an image from a recording an eyewitness made, seemingly by accident, of who we believe to be the killer escaping the train after yesterday’s murder.”

“Yes, I see. A Mr. Taylor Monahan?”

Judy blinked, looking as surprised as Nick felt. “Er, that’s correct. How…?”

The shrew chuckled and sipped from his hot chocolate. “He is very good at what he does. I have made use of his services on multiple occasions. The boys, they always need some motivational video or whatever. Pfeh.”

“Ah.” Judy seemed to take a moment to find her train of thought again. “Anyway, we were hoping that maybe you might know who that boat belongs to? We ran a quick search through the ZPD computer archives before coming here, but it doesn’t seem to have a record. No markings we’re familiar with either. We entered a request to the shipping associations over in the Canal District, but that could take weeks to go through.”

Though it was several times his size, Mr. Big took the photo into his paws and stared for near on a minute at the image of the distant cargo boat. “Hmm… yes… yes, I believe I can answer your question, my child, though I’m unsure how much you will like my answer, or how useful you will find it.”

“And why would that be?” asked Nick, taking a step forward and lifting an eyebrow, ignoring Raymond’s warning growl. As far back as he could remember in his associations with the crime boss, Nick couldn’t remember the shrew ever showing such worry.

If Mr. Big was bothered by Nick’s question, he did not show it as he handed the photo back to Judy. “The boat belongs to Miss Winona Hite, a powerful and dangerous woman. Head of the HiteTech Corporation. She has no personal business within Zootopia herself, content with ruling San Dingo in all but name, but within certain circles she is known to lend out her services and support. All technically legal, as far as I’ve ever heard, and I can’t imagine what she could possibly be doing involved in such crude murders. Not her style.”

“So it’s more likely being used by someone else right now.” Mr. Big nodded at Judy’s thought. She stepped back, smiling again as she gave a little bow. “This has been most helpful, sir. Thank you very much for your assistance.”

“Always my pleasure to help you, Miss Hopps, and to continue to uphold my reputation as an upstanding Zootopian citizen, heh.”

A round of polite laughter ran its course through the kitchen. Nick didn’t even realize he hadn’t joined in until Mr. Big looked at him, brow furrowing in a frown. “What’s the matter, Nicky? You’ve been off since you got here.”

“I, uh.” He glanced at Judy, praying for her to help him out, only for her to meet his look with one of worry. Seeing that only made Nick feel like falling down a deeper hole.

When it became clear Mr. Big wouldn’t excuse them until he said something, Nick sighed and sat on a nearby chair. Well, for him it was a chair, though for one of the polar bear staff it might have been more of a footstool. This wasn’t something he was wanting to share with the mob, of all groups. “After it became clear these new killings were connected somehow to the old Wendigo killings, Judy and I dug up the old case files. It, uh, it turned out that my old man was… one, of those original victims.”

Never did Nick expect that polar bears, hardened killers and extortionists, could look so uncomfortable and wanting to be anywhere other than in that room. Judy’s eyes misted up with the tears Nick refused, the sight of having caused her more pain sending another stab through his heart.

When next Mr. Big spoke, it was with the tone of voice Nick had thought reserved only for Judy and his daughter, Fru Fru. “Nicky, Nicky, Nicky… you have my deepest sympathies for your loss. However, I must warn you to beware yourself as you continue on in your investigation. Revenge, it is a sucker’s game, one I try never to go looking for. There may be some satisfaction at the end, yes, some satisfaction indeed, but all too easy it is to hurt, even break, those closest to you.”

Nick nodded, wishing he could simply stand and walk out the door. “I understand, sir.”

“Do you?” Mr. Big gave Judy a significant look, before leaning back in his chair and motioning to Raymond to lead them back out. “I hope you do, Mr. Wilde. I hope you do.”

*

Back on the downtown side of Zootopia, Nick and Judy discussed their next move over a late lunch of veggie burgers and fries.

“So I texted the boat details to Clawhauser. That should speed up getting a look at it somewhat. Also sent in a request for a background check on Monahan, as per your suspicions.”

Nick nodded as he emptied a packet of ketchup onto his burger. “Oh sweet, I wasn’t sure you cared.”

“Not at first, no.” Judy paused as she ate a handful of fries, washing down with a slurp of soda. “But then he ends up being known by Mr. Big? Like you said, awfully convenient.”

“That’s my girl.” Nick started emptying a second packet onto his tofu burger. “I’ll make a proper big city cynic out of your yet.” The bundle of napkins tossed at his face for this remark went uncommented on as he took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. “Anyway, while you were off doing that, I called to check in with Delgato and the others.”

Judy paused mid-sip, ears up. “Anything case-breaking?”

Nick ate his last fry before answering, taking the time to think. “Maybe. The wolf boys got nothing new from Beltz, but Francine and crew got one juicy detail from Mr. Charmer. Sounds like they’d been dealing with a stalker for a while.”

Judy missed her mouth with the fry, leaving a long line of red trailing up her cheek as she stared at him. Nick laughed and reached over, rubbing the ketchup away with a thumb. “Yeah, I think I made the same face. “Seems a week or so ago they found a camera set in a tree in their front yard, giving a perfect view of both the front door and a window looking in on the kid’s bedroom.”

Judy shuddered, her appetite seeming to leave her as she tossed the rest of her food back into the bag. “Might explain the victim not wanting to just have her kid wait outside the restroom. Did they file a report on the camera?”

“They’re looking into it right now.” Nick made a show of dabbing at his lips with a napkin, garnering a chuckle from his partner, before shoving his trash into the bag as well. “Which all leaves one question. With everyone working on everything else, what do we do?”

Sighing, Judy jerked her thumb to the backseat, where sat the boxes containing all the records for the original Wendigo murders. “There’s still a lot of that to go through. My place or yours?”

*

_“Name: Melinda Cattage._   
_“Species: cheetah._   
_“Age: 26._   
_“Gender: female._   
_“Profession: singer for the Zootopia Harmonics._   
_“Found mauled to death in her Rainforest District home, June 22nd, 1986. The sixth victim of the Wendigo Killer.”_

_“Name: George Savage._   
_“Species: lion._   
_“Age: 64._   
_“Gender: male._   
_“Profession: retired._   
_“Found mauled to death on personal yacht a quarter-mile out into the Bay, June 29th, 1986. The seventh victim of the Wendigo Killer.”_

_“Name: Maurice Llama’rche._   
_“Species: llama._   
_“Age: 16._   
_“Gender: female._   
_“Profession: student at Sahara High._   
_“Found mauled to death in Sahara High locker room, July 5th, 1986. The eighth victim of the Wendigo Killer.”_

_“Name: Miles MacReady._   
_“Species: black bear._   
_“Age: 29._   
_“Gender: male._   
_“Profession: police officer for ZPD Precinct 1._   
_“Found mauled to death in Canal District warehouse, July 12th, 1986. The ninth victim of the Wendigo Killer.”_

_“Names: Lin and Hinata Lee_   
_“Species: panda._   
_“Ages: 27 and 30._   
_“Professions: owners and operators of Crescent Express._   
_“Found mauled to death inside restaurant kitchen July 19th, 1986. The tenth and eleventh victims of the Wendigo Killer. Blood found on their paws suggest the couple injured their attacker in the struggle.”_

Judy stared at the papers a moment more, hoping that simply doing that might provide the answers reading them hadn’t, before tossing them onto the table Nick had dragged over to his bed and flopping backward, letting the layers and layers of blankets envelope her in the rich scent of her partner. “Nothing. Simply nothing. I’ve read through those five times and if there’s any connection between the victims, it’s not one a sane mind can make.”

Down the bed from her, Nick slammed his own stack of papers onto the desk. “Nothing that matters, at any rate. Maybe the school-aged victims met at parties, maybe a lot of them frequented the Chinese restaurant, maybe my old man tailored for them. Not like any of that can be substantiated this long afterward. And our two modern victims have even less of a connection! Damn it!”

Judy flinched at the swear and looked over at her partner. The sight of the fox, her fox, hunched over the table with his head in his paws, ears back and eyes clenched shut, hurt like a broken bone. “It’s going to be okay, Nick. We’re going to solve this case. We’ve never failed yet!”

“First time for everything,” he muttered, dragging his paws up and over his face to the back of his head. He stared at the movie poster-plastered wall across the room from him for a moment, eyes flicking to spots unseen. Then he suddenly shoved the table away from the bed and hopped off to the floor, grabbing the ceramic replica knife from the nightstand at the foot of the bed. “We’ve got to try something different, Judy. Come on, get down here.”

Every natural instinct in Judy’s body screamed at her not to obey the frustrated, knife-wielding fox. She pushed that all aside and dropped to the floor, moving to stand three feet from Nick and facing toward him. “What is this, some kind of crime scene re-enactment?”

In answer, Nick crossed the distance between them in two long strides, knife raised. Judy forced down the fighting response drilled into her at the police academy and let him grab her by the shoulder, pulling her until their fronts pressed together and the knife edge danced across her throat, tickling through the fur. It made her shiver. “Nick?”

At her voice he frowned and spun her around, paw moving from her shoulder to cover her mouth. “He came at them from behind, easier to keep them calling for help. But…” The knife pressed against her throat again, tangibly uneasy now, uncertain. “Judy, you saw the second victim better than I did. What would you figure the angle of the slash was? Can you remember?”

Judy grimaced beneath the paw covering her mouth. Closing her eyes, she steadied herself as she thought back to that moment on the train, forcing the restroom door open to the sight of the snow leopard slumped in a corner. Her eyes glassy and staring into nothing, the viscous red of the exposed muscle and bone, the slash across the throat, like a second mouth, a lopsided frown.

Reaching up, Judy took hold of Nick’s paw and carefully angled the knife over, directing the tip further to her chin, the crossguard pressing into her throat. Not easy, with how much taller the fox was to her. Once she was done she let go and gave a thumbs-up.

“So the killer was shorter than the snow leopard,” said Nick, to which Judy nodded. “Probably not as heavily built as her either. Not too much smaller though, or else he—”

“Or she,” said Judy, pulling his paw off her mouth.

“Or she,” agreed Nick, “wouldn’t have been strong enough to hold the leopard in place long enough to do the deed. A wolf, maybe…”

Judy rolled her eyes. “Do you mind letting go of me, Shetlock Holmes?”

Silence, the fox above her still, tense. Suddenly nervous, Judy reached up to pry the knife from her throat. The moment she managed to get it out of his paw and toss it to the table, both of Nick’s arms wrapped around her belly and chest, keeping her close. Now Judy’s bunny instincts were shrieking, her heart thundering in her chest as she fought to keep her breathing calm and steady. “Nick, seriously, this isn’t the time for—”

“Carrots?”

Immediately, Judy stopped trying to pull away, instincts quieting at the sound of the familiar nickname, spoken not in a predator’s voice, but in a scared little kit’s. “Nick?”

Several seconds passed before something wet dropped onto Judy’s head, followed by a sniffle. “You trust me, right? You trust me for this case, and this killer, and just to be in your life, right?”

Oh.

Squirming in the fox’s hold, Judy turned herself around to face him once more. She looked up into her partner’s green eyes and wished she could tear away all the pain she found in them. “With my life, Nick. Always.”

The kiss that followed was wet and breathless, shooting fireworks through Judy from the tips of her ears to the bottoms of her paws. Her only regret was that the buzzing of her phone getting a text interrupted the moment only a few seconds in.

_“Delgato here. Clawhauser found the mystery boat. Sending directions to the shipping warehouse and attached pier now. Meet you down there with Francine.”_


	6. Officers Down

The snow had stopped by the time Judy pulled their cruiser into the gravel parking lot of Ratterson’s Shipping & Travel, stacks of corrugated shipping containers and pyramids of rusting drum barrels groaning in the wind behind a chain-link fence. If anything, though, the world felt colder, the air dry and rough beneath that cloudy sky. Nick’s mother, in his youth, called it the kind of cold that stole the breath away. The kind of cold that cut through even the heaviest coats. The kind of cold that felt like death.

BANG.

Nick flinched as the sound of the cruiser doors slamming shut rang through the air like gunshots. Pulling his jacket tighter, he followed Judy to where Officers Delgato and Francine stood by the chain-link gate into the compound, in heated discussion with a nick-eared ferret. From the twitching of Judy’s ears, Nick guessed the exchange was none-too-friendly.

“Hi!” shouted Judy once she got within what Nick deemed proper civil discourse distance, the other two officers looking visibly relieved as the ferret turned his attention to her. “Officer Hopps here, this is my partner, Officer Wilde. My fellow officers have explained our reason for being here, yes?”

The ferret squinted at her, the coat and multiple scarves he wore seeming to do little against the cold as he shivered and coughed. “Yeah, they told me, and I’m t-telling you what I t-told them back. Ain’t nobody taken that boat you’re looking for out all week. Just sitting there at the pier, collecting rust. So unless one of you’s carrying a warrant, we ain’t continuing this conversation.”

Nick rolled his eyes at this tough-guy act, thinking back to his old hustling days and glad he could boast that he at least never had to rely on the old “Where’s your warrant?” defense. Too weak, too many loopholes, loopholes he and Judy had made plenty use of over the years.

A sudden gale whipped their collective coats and scarves into a frenzy, setting Nick into a growl. Tired of being exposed out there in the cold and figuring the shipping containers would at least provide some wind blockage, he cleared his throat and stepped even with Judy, sharing a look with her. After two seconds she sighed and nodded. A glance at Delgato and Francine showed the tiger and elephant suddenly busy on their smartphones, the sounds of the latest Furbook game fad blaring out.

“Hey, what are you cops playing a—”

Nick stepped into the ferret’s personal space, cutting him off with a toothy smile. “You know, I have a very, very BIG friend who might be interested in acquiring some property around here. He would probably be a little peeved if he found out the ferret he had to buy the place from said no to his favorite cops in the world. He’s not BIG on personal slights, if you get my meaning.”

“You mean—”

“All I’m saying,” Nick said, stepping back and keeping up that smile, “is that cops like us, as you so helpfully pointed out, need warrants to go some places, and there are people who don’t need warrants. It’s a common hazard every business owner needs to be aware of that I, as a wholesome police officer, feel you have not been properly informed of.”

By the end of the speech, everyone there knew the ferret would have been shivering even had it been a blazing summer day. With a panicky little laugh he began digging through his coat’s pockets for the gate keys. “No, no, uh, upon second thought, it has occurred to me that I’ve really got no reason to withhold a simple search of a boat from such upstanding, uh, cops as you four. P-please, just give me a moment and—”

Not moving half a foot, Francine reached over and shoved the gate open, metal screeching against metal and chips of rust scattering.

“—and, er, right. Please, follow me then, officers.”

Grinning at a job well done, Nick let himself fall back to the rear of small group as it started its way through the storage yard, arms up and behind his head. Beside him Judy sighed, though it didn’t take rabbit ears to hear her amusement. “You enjoy playing that card too much, Nick, she said, whispered low so that the others couldn’t hear her. “One of these days someone is going to actually call you on it, and then where will you be?”

“At your side,” was the easy response, “fighting our way out like the daring ZPD partners we are.”

“Hm.” She nodded and quickened her pace, closing the gap that had grown between them and the others and forcing him to do likewise. “Yeah, good answer.”

Up ahead, the ferret began talking about the boat in response to some unheard question asked by Francine. “The boat’s been here three, going on four months now, I’d say. One of those old-fashioned fishing trawlers, the kind you’d see in those 70s shark movies. Really old thing, practically scrap, probably sold off as some money laundering thing. Not that I know. I keep my nose clean, don’t care about none of that. Some guy, a big cat, he rents it out every couple of days, no cargo or anything on it when he leaves or comes back. None that I ever see anyway, and appearances aside, I run a tight ship here. Pun intended. Anyway, I figure he takes it over to the Marshlands or out farther for gator hunting.”

Nick looked to Judy and found her looking at him. There it was, another connection to that deadly sport.

“Seems like an odd choice of boat for navigating the Marshlands,” said Francine.

“Not the oddest I’ve seen used,” said the ferret with a shrug. “Old scrap or not, it’s touch scrap. You lose more idiot hunters from too-flimsy boats than from anything else. Ah, here we are.”

They’d rounded a corner in the maze of shipping containers, bringing them out onto the business’ private piers. Half a dozen yards ahead, the boat they came for floated alone and… Nick wouldn’t exactly call it proud, but it was there. More rust and rot than metal and wood, its sails stripped down in favor of heavily added-on-to engines in the rear, Nick thought the tug looked as likely to explode as to turn on.

“What a piece of junk,” said Delgato, jerking Nick away from similar thoughts from his unexpected closeness. Does that thing even start?”

“Well if it didn’t,” said the ferret, huffing as he pulled ahead of them, eyes on the boat, “it wouldn’t have been in whatever crime or junk you people think it was. What a stupid comment. What are you even wanting to come see it for anyway?”

“Physical evidence,” said Judy, distractedly. Nick frowned to see her ears twitching, turning every direction. “People don’t just fall the distance this guy did, into water as hard and cold as he did, without dislodging something. Clothing, or fur.”

“Maybe a tooth,” Nick chimed in, to nobody’s amusement. Frowning, a sense of foreboding came over him as they came within a few yards of the boat, something not seeming right about the entire scenario. To his left walked Judy, on alert as only a prey could be, nose twitching as a paw gravitated to the tranquilizer gun holstered on her hip. Ahead walked Francine and the ferret manager, in conversation again as the elephant helped the smaller mammal up onto the deck of the boat. In-between walked—

—no, thought Nick, in-between stalked Delgato, the tiger tense, eyes roving everywhere as his steps slowed. Slowed and edged, ever so slightly, to position Francine between him and the boat.

Before Nick could voice any of these thoughts however, Judy suddenly shot to full attention, turning and tackling him to the splintered and ice-cracked pier. “Everybody dow—”

BOOM.

The shipping boat disappeared in a flash of blinding fire, the ferret going with it with barely a scream, Francine bellowing her pain as fire and shrapnel downed her, the shockwave of the explosion knocking Delgato off his feet. To Nick it felt like winter had turned, for several terrible seconds, into the heart of a Sahara Square summer.

Then Judy was rolling off of him and back to her feet, radio already to her mouth as she ran from the pier. “Dispatch, this is Officer Hopps! Evidence has been destroyed and we have an officer down and a dead civilian! Ratterson’s Shipping & Travel, right at the piers! Suspect is fleeing and I am in pursuit!”

Suspect?

Still dazed and reeling, Nick forced himself onto his paws and knees and looked up just in time to see a figure disappear into the maze of shipping containers and drum barrels, Judy a few yards behind. “Aw, cripes! Hopps, wait!”

Fighting through his aching body, Nick stood and began following, first hobbling, then running. Glancing back at the crime scene, he saw Delgato also getting to his feet. “Check on Francine and wait for the ambulance!”

Nick only barely had time to see the large tiger nod before entering the cargo field and losing all sight of him, Francine’s distressingly-motionless body, and the still-burning wreck of what had minutes before been their only hope for a lead. The entire world beyond the shipyard disappeared, leaving only metal walls three to four times Nick’s size all around, the crunch of multiple feet kicking up snow and gravel, the echoes of Judy’s calls for the suspect to stop, and Nick’s own unsteady breathing.

Making a turn, Nick only just caught sight of a bunny ear disappearing around a stack of barrels. Past that, her shadow against a rust-encrusted old ship hull moaning in the wind. Nick ran to it, turned, saw only more barrels to one side and wooden crates to the other. He ran down that makeshift corridor until it split into an intersection. No sign of which way his partner had gone.

“Hopps!”

The crash of falling barrels echoed down the left-hand path in answer. Nick drew his stun gun and ran down it, ears perked for the slightest sound. “Judy, where the Hell are you!? Tell me you have eyes on—”

He turned the corner and skid to a halt, conscious mind catching only the impression of a heavy-coated figure pointing a gun right at him before he dove back behind the wall of wood crates. A bullet shattered the corner of a crate a foot from his head, splinters peppering the arm he’d raised just in time to shield his eyes. A second bullet tore through only a few inches from his leg, sending gravel spraying and Nick backpedaling until he fell onto his rear. It was all he could do to find the radio hooked to his belt. “Dispatch, we’ve got shots fired! Suspect is armed and Officer Hopps is nowhere in sight! I could use some blasted backup right about now!”

Whatever Clawhauser said in response, it was lost to Nick as a cold, iron voice rose up from just around the corner. “Never took you for a coward, Wilde. Should have, I suppose. You are just a fox, after all.”

Nick dropped the radio, scrambling back to his feet and leveling his stun gun at the corner with both paws. “Drop your weapon and come out with your paws up!”

“Of course,” continued the voice, perhaps a foot or two away, “your father went out about the same, so perhaps it’s a family thing?”

A crackle and snap rang through the world, or perhaps only through Nick’s head. Hackles rising, he let loose a growl as he edged closer to the corner. “What did you say!?”

“James, that was his name, right? James Wilde?” The voice let out a mirthless chuckle. “Oh, how he screamed and whined as his face was eaten off! Cried like a newborn pup ripped straight from his mommy!”

A low crunching sound came to Nick’s ears. He thought he might be grinding his own teeth to breaking. A flick of his thumb adjusted the stun gun to maximum, the setting reserved for rhinos and elephants. “You can’t know that. You’re just a copycat! You’re not—”

“The original killer?” The voice sounded bored then, disappointed. “But since the ZPD couldn’t have cared less to do anything about a mere fox getting murdered, even release it to the media, how else could I know any of this? Hm, maybe your bunny partner would be more fun to play with…”

A veil of blood and fire fell over the world and Nick’s veins SCREAMED over it. He snarled and leapt around the corner, caught sight of a figure turning a corner five yards ahead, and ran after him, no thought for safety, no fear, nothing but anger and hate and the promise of pain and revenge and justice and—

Around the corner, a figure, blurred by speed and tears, a weapon leveled at Nick. He squeezed off a shot with his stun gun first. In the instant before impact the raging veil lifted and Nick registered Judy’s terrified face. Then there came an ear-splitting ZAP, a short-lived scream as electricity visibly coursed over Judy’s body, and then the THUMP of her falling lifeless to the ground.

Nick dropped the used stun gun, all thoughts of further pursuit forgotten as he ran and fell to his motionless partner's side. "Oh God! Oh God, oh God, Judy!" She made no sound, gave no sign up hearing him, eyes remaining up to the gray sky. Nick choked back a sob and got to work, ripping first the still-smoking stun gun barbs from the bunny's gut, then her bulletproof vest from her chest, cursing all the while at whatever errant breeze or movement had blown her coat open. An ear to her chest gave him no heartbeat, a finger to her neck only a weak and failing pulse.

"Noooo, God damn it, Judy, stay with me!"

Nick's paws shook as he pressed them to Judy's chest, putting his full weight behind each compression and terrified he'd catch the sound of a breaking rib. "Five... Ten... Fifteen... Twenty... Twenty-five..."

After thirty compressions he pinched her nose and sealed his lips against hers. He gave a breath, watched her chest rise with it, then gave another breath and started again on the compressions.

"Five... Ten... Fifteen... Twenty... Twenty-five..."

Another thirty compressions, another two breaths for her, and then a third set, until his arms felt like jelly and his ears rang. He'd just started leaning over to breathe for her a third time when her chest rose on its own, then fell, a breath like a sigh leaving her.

“Judy!”

“Nick,” she mumbled back, gaze drifting for a moment before finding him. Her lips turned up into a weak smile. “Foxes… so emotional…”

Nick laughed, then cried, body-wracking sobs that left his muscles aching, because it wasn’t funny, not at all. He grabbed her into a hug, mindful of her bruised chest. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m s-s-so sorry…”

“Shh… it’s okay… it’s okay…”

Officers arriving to the scene found the pair this way two minutes later, two partners broken by a foe they had yet to meet.

*

“The Waterfront was a scene of massive horror earlier today, as gunfire and explosions were reported coming from Ratterson’s Shipping & Travel.

“The battle was the result of what is now believed to have been a police encounter with the resurgent Wendigo Killer. Two police officers, Sergeant Judy Hopps and Lieutenant Francine Franco, were rushed to Zootopia General following the battle. The owner and manager of the shipping company, Richard Ratterson, was also killed in the battle. While the state of Officer Hopps is unknown, it is known that Officer Franco is in Intensive Care. We at Zootopia News wish both of them a speedy recovery.

“In other news, another victim of the Wendigo Killer has been identified. At 8:31 this evening, Mr. Inigo Lupine, star quarterback of the Sahara Sailors, was found dead in his home by his husband, Charles Lupine. This makes the third such victim in as many days.

“In light of these recent events, some are calling into question the ZPD’s ability to maintain law and order within the city, wondering if perhaps it is time for Zootopia to follow the example of other cities, such as San Dingo, which have moved to employing private enforcement initiatives such as H.A.W.K. Mayor Swinton, however, has gone on record with her continuing support for Chief Bogo and his officers.

“And now, Olly Otter with the weather. How is it out there, Olly?”

“IT SNOWIN’ SIDEWAYS!”


	7. Love Hurts

Nick had never seen Bogo so angry. The police chief sat across from him in the old water buffalo’s office, the hour ringing 10 at night, both men tired, and hurting, and wishing the day to just be over, even as they knew the next day would be no better.

“Let us review, shall we?” Bogo’s voice dripped with venom, allowing no room for comment from Nick. “Two of my best officers down, one in critical condition and, even if she fully recovers, won’t be back to work for months. And the other, well, the other, momentarily KILLED by her own partner delivering enough voltage to her tiny rabbit heart to stun an ELEPHANT. On top of all this, we have one civilian dead in the crossfire, one destroyed boat, and our killer merrily skipping away with time to spare to add another victim to his face collection! And on top of all that, none of you had a warrant to be there in the first place!”

Bogo’s fist came down, adding another crack to the well-worn desk. “Damn it, Wilde! Give me one good reason I shouldn’t rip that badge from your chest and throw you out to the street!”

Looking up from his lap for the first time since getting there, Nick turned his gaze to that new crack, running top to bottom down the front-left leg, then to Bogo’s steaming, huffing features, and then to his own police badge. The metal was worn now, scratched and dented, the lettering somewhat faded, but Nick could still remember the way the badge gleamed in the summer sun as it was pinned on at his graduation. As Judy pinned it on, his partner and friend, the rabbit he loved and had nearly robbed the world of.

With a sigh, Nick removed the badge and tossed it onto Bogo’s desk. The clatter of its landing deafened with a sense of finality.

Bogo stared at the abandoned badge as if it were some kind of scandalizing photograph, before looking back up at Nick. He spoke now with concern as well as anger. “What’s the meaning of this, Wilde?”

Nick shrugged, turning his gaze back to his lap. Stuffing his paws in his pockets, he felt the forgotten autopsy photo of his father and clenched it tight. Idly he wondered where the cool, “never let them see that they get to you” fox of yesteryear had gone. “This entire investigation has me emotionally compromised, sir. Today I let that badge, my partner, Francine, and all they stand for, down. I am… not fit to be a part of this department any longer.”

A moment of silence passed. Nick glanced up, made eye contact with Bogo as the police chief’s gaze bored through him, and found himself unable to look away as the other spoke. “This isn’t only about your partner, is it, Wilde? What’s gotten under your skin that makes you think I’d just let you walk away like the coward fox you pretend to be?”

Nick almost groaned. All hope of getting out of the building and back home without having to spill his guts out to his (former?) boss of all people, fled before the unyielding glare leveled at him.

Sighing, he drew the crumpled photograph from his pocket and tossed it as he did his badge. This time Bogo caught it, spreading it out on the desk and looking it over. At the questioning look that followed, Nick could only shrug. "Chief, do you think there's ever a good time to discover your father didn't walk out when you were a child, but was murdered and the police didn't care enough to even tell anyone?"

Chief Bogo’s face grew pale, fists tightening where they rested on the desk. It was the most horror Nick had ever seen his boss express, and it left him stunned as Bogo stood up. In the darkened office, towering over Nick, he seemed a terrible figure. “Three-week suspension. Half-pay. Leave your weapons and tools with Clawhauser at the front desk.”

“Sir, I—”

“I know your intent was to quit,” said Chief Bogo, trampling over Nick’s attempted objection as easily as he might have trampled over Nick himself. “But I will not have it. Every cop in every precinct eventually gets confronted with a case that breaks them a little. I can hardly blame you for getting a worse one than most cops here have to deal with.”

Nick drew back into his seat as Chief Bogo stomped around to his side of the desk, shoving his badge and his father’s photo into his face as if they were a forgotten lunch developing a particularly foul mold that he wished to be rid of. “Now get out of my sight, Wilde, and remember. You are no longer officially working this investigation. Am. I. Clear?”

It was funny, Nick thought, how your paws could be shaking and you not even realize it until you tried grabbing something. Throat dry, he pocketed the photo and badge, standing and giving his boss a quick salute before turning and walking, not running, out the door.

Outside the ZPD, Nick found the air throat-achingly cold, a fresh snowfall gusting at an angle from ragged cloud cover, the full moon the brightest thing to be seen no matter the direction one looked. Few walked the darkened streets alongside Nick, three murders enough to send all but the bravest, the dumbest, or the most desperate indoors. What vehicles were to be seen on the streets passed by like ghosts in the night, solemn and silent.

Hiking his collar up against the wind, Nick started down the street, feeling no reason to hurry to his home, alone. And like all who walked through that area, as he walked he found his eyes drawn to the developing mural on the side of city hall. With every murder, the unseen vandals grew more detailed and macabre in their work of art. The faceless figure towered now over scribblings of prostrate mammals, his antlers with an improbable number of wicked tines, the knife in one hand changed to an axe, the other hand holding aloft a crude heart.

“But that’s not right,” Nick found himself saying, standing half a dozen yards off from the mural and having been so longer than he could recall. “The killer removes the face, not the heart…”

_"I don’t know, maybe it’s supposed to represent the city’s heart.”_

Nick turned to his left, a snarky comeback to Judy’s insight half-formed on his lips. But nobody was there, and certainly no Judy. She was back at the hospital still, and would be at least until the morning. No more playful banter between them.

Ears folding back, Nick lowered his head and started trudging through ankle-deep drifts of snow for the bus stop once more. He paid little heed to the motorcycling idling near the Natural History Museum some yards off, its helmeted rider watching him go with professional interest.

*

BBRRRRRRR… BBRRRRRRR… BBRRRRRRR…

Nick groaned as he was hauled kicking and screaming back to consciousness, head ringing harder than his phone ever could. He twisted within the sweltering cocoon his blankets had formed during the night, wiggling and grunting before finally getting his head above water and taking a deep, gasping breath.

BBRRRRRRR… BBRRRRRRR… BBRRRRRRR…

More grunting, more pulling and twisting, and Nick managed to get an arm free from the blankets-turned-boa constrictor. Eyes still sealed shut by ancient slumber spirits, he groped about his nightstand, finding first an emptied bottle, then a case of (legal?) pills, then another bottle, before finally finding his smartphone.

BBRRRRRRR… BBRRRRRRR… BBRRRRRRR…

With the greatest of effort, Nick cracked open his eyelids as one cracks the seals to a long-lost Egyptian tomb and stared at the number calling. In his current state he found himself unable to recall if it was a number he knew intimately or had never seen in his life, and so, answered. "Hell... Hello?"

"Nick, it's Judy!"

Nick wished it wasn't too late to go back to drowning in his sheets. "Oh... Judy... Hey..."

“Oh gosh, Nick, you sound awful. Are you sick? Have you been drinking?”

His neck gave a pop as he looked around. The thin, wispy light streaming through the blinds near his bed was enough to make out the copious bottles and chip bags strewn about the bedroom floor, testaments to his despair the night before. The clock on the nightstand glared 10:15 at him. “No. No I haven’t. What are you calling for, Hopps?”

A pause on the other end of the line. Nick could imagine the rabbit staring off at nothing with wide eyes, nose twitching at the use of her last name.

Finally, “I’m calling because there’s still a job to do. I know yesterday was a disaster, but—”

“Shut it, Hopps.” It hurt to talk with such hostility to his partner, his friend, but hearing her voice hurt Nick far worse, worse in how relieved it made him feel. Better, he thought, to cut that off at the source.

“Nick?”

“I said shut it! I’m suspended and you, you, you should be at the hospital, or in your apartment, or back home to Bunnyburrow to recover from your dumbass partner nearly killing you! So don’t call me again, don’t think about me, don’t think about the case, just… just don’t!”

“Ni—”  
Nick jabbed the END CALL button. When another call came only seconds later he snarled, hit IGNORE, and threw the phone across the room. The thunk of it hitting the wood of his bedroom door and something breaking gave him no relief.

A minute of silence passed as Nick stared up at a ceiling blurred by tears and remembered how Judy had bought him that phone for his first birthday as a cop. Then he heard the front door to his apartment unlock, followed by soft footfalls coming up the hall to his bedroom, and he groaned. “She has a key… right…”

Small knuckles rapped against the bedroom door. “Nick, are you okay in there? If you’re not decent, say something, because I’m coming in.”

Despite himself, Nick rolled into a sitting position, letting the blankets fall by the wayside. A look downward told him that he at least still had his pants on, which surely counted as “decent” in any halfway-modern civilization.

But then the door was open and there was no more time for thinking because there she was, Judy, dressed in her civilian flannel and looking tired, short of breath, but alive and there and okay.

He watched as she took in the room, the empty bottles, and the broken phone at a glance, before looking up at him, her nose twitching. They stared at each other for what felt like hours, though it could only have been mere minutes. Nick broke first, ears folding back and eyes going to his paws in his lap. “I’m sorry, Judy. I, I am so, so sorry for hurting you, for being… well, for being maybe the worst partner in ZPD history. You deserve someone better than me.”

“That’s to be decided,” she said, making Nick flinch. He heard her take a step deeper into the room. “How did it happen, Nick? We were trained how to proceed in situations like that, so how…?”

Nick wished he could blame the killer, the environment, the stress of seeing as good and reliable a comrade as Francine go down, but he couldn’t. “It’s my fault. I should have known better, you’re right, but the killer, he started taunting me about my dad as if he had been the one to… to kill him, and I just stopped thinking. I just stopped thinking.”

The sound of another step, followed by the bed creaking as Judy hopped up onto it. Nick ignored her, preferring instead to study his paws as he clenched and unclenched them. “It’s kinda funny. It’s like what Mr. Big warned me about, remember? About how easy it is to hurt the people we love with revenge? Heh, I guess that’s one more thing the old shrew’s been right about me.”

“Nick. Look at me.”

He didn’t look, not at first, not until she grabbed him by the chin and forced his head to turn her way. Judy glared at him, eyes full of pain and care. “I’m not going to lie, Wilde. What happened hurt me. A lot. I can try, but I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to… whatever it was we might have had before all this happened.”

Nick nodded in agreement, having settled on this somewhere around his third beer the night before.

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t still love you,” she continued, paws moving from his chin to his shoulders. “And it doesn’t mean I don’t still trust you. Because you stayed, Nick! You didn’t keep after him, you stopped to help me without a second thought! And that’s how I know that you will always have my back, okay?”

Nick nodded again, the tears returning to his eyes mirrored in hers. It felt good to have some of the weight lifted from his shoulders. “You’re right. Of course. Sly bunny. I should have known."

They sat there in comfortable silence for five minutes, neither quite wanting the moment of reconciliation to end. Eventually however Nick sighed, and at that, the time came for work.

The bedroom was a bust, too cluttered to waste time cleaning at the moment. They moved the boxes of old files still sitting on the bedroom desk to Nick’s living room coffee table, Nick sparing enough time to put on a fresh Hawaiian shirt and a garish blue-striped tie. As Judy spread out and organized the files on the table, Nick propped a whiteboard on the nearby couch and scribbled at the top a single question.

“What do we know?”

“We know that there are no discernible connections between the victims,” said Judy, watching Nick write this down in shorthand. “The three killed so far have all lived in different areas of Zootopia, held different jobs, moved in different social circles, different species, everything.”

“We know,” said Nick, moving to a different area of the whiteboard, “that each victim has died the same way; a slash to the throat. Afterward, each victim had their face carefully carved from their head by an unidentified knife, not sold in any specialty knife stores in Zootopia.” He paused, frowned, looked over his shoulder at Judy. “What other ways are there to get a knife, beside buying it?”

Judy set the last file out and shrugged. “Steal it, find it, be given it. I’m pretty sure a soldier doesn’t have to go out and buy his own knife and gun, after all.”

This spurred a memory in Nick, a vision of a clouded leopard, horribly disfigured. Turning to the whiteboard, he began writing again. “We know that the only known footage of the killer came from a civilian, Taylor Monahan. I remember he made a comment implying former military service. That video also, I might add, led us to the boat and that frankly incredible nightmare at Ratterson’s.”

Judy joined him at the whiteboard, taking the marker to put down her own thoughts. “A camera was also found near the home of the second victim, though unidentified and ZPD no longer has it in evidence. You think he might be our guy?”

Looking over what they’d written, Nick’s frown deepened. “I don’t know. Connected, maybe, but there doesn’t seem any reason to this. Why give us the camera if it’s only going to lead us so close to the truth?”  
Judy started writing on the board again. “Alibi? Set up the camera on a tripod, then claim he’s holding it while he actually commits his crime? Unless we actually searched his belongings and found a tripod, it’d be hard to dispute without proof.”

“Yeah… yeah, it would be.” Nick rubbed at his eyes, the headache of before returning. “Coffee. I need coffee. You want to tell me whatever had you so excited on the phone while I make us some?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” she said as she set the marker down and went back to the table and its files. “Last night, after hearing about the latest killing, I figured out a connection between the old Wendigo murders and these new murders.”

“Really!?” This perked Nick up at once, a spring entering his step as he loaded the coffee machine in the corner kitchen and hit the ON button. As it worked its brewing magic he joined her at the table, looking over her shoulder at the files. “What gave it away?”

In answer, Judy pointed to the files for the first three original Wendigo murders. “Once is nothing, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern. First murder, an antelope; second murder, a leopard; third murder, a wolf.” She looked up at him, face set in a grim smile. “The three killings so far in this new Wendigo spree—”

“An antelope, a leopard, and a wolf,” Nick finished for her, feeling suddenly like the world’s biggest idiot. “The new killing spree is following the order of the original murders…”

“Only happening a lot faster,” said Judy, ears perking a moment before the coffee machine beeped its readiness. “Instead of once every week, we have one a day. Whoever our copycat killer is, he or she seriously wants to outdo the original. And Nick, I’m sorry, but,” and here her paw found his, “Whatever they said to rile you up at Ratterson’s, I’m almost certain we’re dealing with a copycat here. It’s the best explanation for the escalation we’re seeing.”

“I know, he said, the words like ash in his mouth. He gave her paw a squeeze before letting go and standing, keeping himself physically busy with getting out the coffee. “All this just raises a question, though. A question and a very, very bad possibility.”

The apartment seemed to physically cool as Judy reached the same conclusion Nick had. “How would they know about your father without someone in the ZPD…”

Coming back over with two mugs of coffee, each loaded down with enough cream and sugar to give Clawhauser pause, Nick sat down on the couch and handed her own, taking a deep drink of his before asking the question fresh on his mind. “Carrots, how well do you know Delgato?”


	8. Answers and Truths

“So, let me get this straight.” Chief Bogo’s voice crackled through Judy’s smartphone speakers, her ears twitching as the water buffalo performed a rousing impression of an Arctic glacier. “You and Wilde, who I for some reason need to remind you is suspended for injury to your person, believe that Sergeant Delgato, one of my most trusted and dependable officers, who has served the ZPD nearly as long as I have, who has earned more medals for acts protecting fellow officers than you could probably fit on your teensy little bunny body, is in some way connected to the Wendigo Killer? This is what you called me to say?”

Sitting on Nick’s too-large couch and eyeing his too-large mug of coffee, Judy wished the fox was the one who lost the round of Rock, Paper, Scissors that decided which of them would call Bogo. “Ahem, well, ‘believe’ is such a strong word when you say it like that. We merely think that, based on all we know and how he acted at the shipping yard, Officer Delgato… possibly… knows more than he’s letting on?” She hadn’t meant to end that as a question. She really hadn’t.

Over the line, Bogo sighed. “Hopps, your dedication to your work is as impressive as always, and in light of your injury and the stresses you and your partner have been through, I have chosen to ignore the serious accusations you are throwing around. Delgato is a police officer I would trust with my life, and have before, on several occasions. With Francine hospitalized, he’s the only officer I trust to assume lead on this investigation, and you’d do well to remember that.”

Judy shrunk down into the couch as her boss spoke, grimacing at that final reprimand. Yet as confident as Bogo was, she couldn’t shake the certainty that Nick’s suspicions of their tiger coworker had brought her. The target of their suspicions being their replacement in the official investigation sent her stomach roiling.

“Hopps, you still there?”

Looking over at the files they’d taken from Records, Judy bit her lip and came to a split-second decision. “Yes, I am. Sorry. If you’re… if you’re sure about that, sir. And if Delgato’s leading things, I better bring the files Nick and I borrowed back to the station. He’ll need them more than us.”

“If you’re certain you’re up for that, Hopps.”

“Absolutely, sir,” Judy said, looking up to Nick’s bedroom door as he stepped out, sliding his phone back into a pants pocket. “I’ll be down there in half an hour.” She ended the call, and then to Nick said

“Well that went about as well as we expected. Please tell me you had better luck on your end.”

“Hey, my end doesn’t need luck.” Nick plopped down next to her and dragged a paw across his face. “Finnick’s never heard of Taylor Monahan in any capacity beyond the guy’s footage service, but he said he’ll try to have something dug up by the afternoon. That’s assuming he even has anything to be dug up and we’re not just being a pair of overworked paranoids like Bogo said would always happen.”

“Finnick’s a resourceful little fox. He’ll find something, I’m sure of it.” Placing one paw on Nick’s knee, Judy picked up his coffee with the other and held it up to him. She waited until he took it with a sigh before continuing. “By the afternoon, you said? Okay. That gives us a few hours to get our own work done and hopefully have something to give ourselves.”

Draining the rest of the mug in one long slurp, Nick gave his head a shake before looking back at her. “Whatever you have in mind, do you think you can handle it yourself? I’ve got places to be, people to see.”

Judy looked at the waiting files, taking a moment to mentally figure the number of boxes it would take to carry them all before nodding. “Yeah, I can manage. You have a lead you want to follow up on?”

He stood, setting his mug down as he did. “More like a… loose end to take care of. It’s a big city with a lot of foxes. I think I can drop that by at least one.”

*

Chief Bogo sat in his office, chin sitting on his knuckles, gaze to the map of Zootopia adorning his office wall.

In some regard, he had nothing but respect for Officers Hopps and Wilde. Long gone were the days when he felt the temptation to doubt them and their abilities as cops for what they were. They had too many solved cases, stopped crimes, and saved citizens between them for that. And yet, to accuse any of their fellow officers of corruption of any sort seemed a leap even for the wild deductions they seemed to specialize in. Bogo knew Delgato, had known him since their days walking the beat, had trusted that tiger’s paws to stem the bleeding from more than a few bullet wounds, and vice-versa. Bogo had been there for the tiger at his wedding and at his divorce, through the worst and best of his life. Delgato was a good man.

And yet, Bogo’s years as a cop whispered to him, echoing Hopps’ concerns. And yet, how had the new Wendigo Killer known officers had found the boat so fast and set it up to explode on them? And yet, how had the killer known of Wilde’s connection to the original killer’s victims? And yet, how did the killer so handily avoid notice from every possibly street camera?

And yet, and yet, and yet… how, without help somewhere within ZPD ranks?

A knock came from the door, followed by it opening and the tiger in question popping his head in. "You wanted to see me, Chief Bogo, sir?"

Bogo nodded toward one of the chairs in front of his desk. "Close the door behind you." He watched Delgato do as instructed, watching for any sign of... he wasn't sure what, most likely nothing, but there was always that chance...

"Officer Hopps called me just now with the most interesting theory," said Bogo, once he thought he'd waited long enough. "She's noticed that these new murders are following the species pattern of the original murders, meaning that the next victim will likely be a fox."

Delgato sighed and shook his head, smirking. "That poor workaholic. Just doesn't know when to quit. But yes, McHorn reached the same conclusion. We were planning to increase patrols in more fox-heavy neighborhoods, have Clawhauser write up an announcement to send to city news networks, perhaps even call for a curfew. Until the danger's passed."

"All reasonable moves," said Bogo, shuffling through the papers on his desk. He stopped on one at random and gave every appearance of closely reading it. "You should also like to know that Francine woke up this morning and seems to be in the clear."

Delgato's ears perked and what Bogo swore was a genuine smile split his face. "That's great news."

"Indeed it is." Bogo gave a smile of his own, a genuine one, certain he would have recognized… something, if there were any weight to Hopps’ concerns. “Now, get to work, before I find another investigation lead.”

*

“This is a stupid plan. No, it’s a brilliant plan… no, Judy, this is a really stupid plan. You’ll get laughed at, or kicked out, or worst of all, yelled at by Chief Bogo. But that is a risk I’m willing to take… for justice… I don’t even know what that means, I just thought it sounded good. Now come on, times wasting. Go, Judy. And remember, you are distraught and embarrassed! Like I won’t even be acting at all.”

Rolling her eyes at her own whispered monologue, Judy walked the final few steps to the ZPD headquarters, pushing a door open with her foot as he balanced several cardboard boxes in her arms. She paid no heed to the multitude of eyes turning her way for brief or lingering moments, instead keeping her gaze distant and ears down as she padded over to Clawhauser at the front desk. Judy had to suppress a smirk at the sight of the cheetah paused mid-bite of a donut. “Hey, Ben…”

Clawhauser set the donut back down in the box it came from, distracted enough to smash it and several other pastries into crumbs. “Uh, hey there, Judy. Wow, wasn’t expecting you so soon after… you know…”

“Yeah, I know.” Judy grunted, making a show of how heavy the boxes were as she shifted them around in her arms. “But medical leave or not, duty calls.”

Clawhauser leaned over his counter for a better look, flinching back into his seat as Judy practically dropped her two-box stack next to the front desk, the resulting BANG ringing through the ZPD lobby. “Cripes! You poor dear! What is all that?”

“Case files,” said Judy, voice low and even, containing just the barest hint of a tremble to it. Her best performance, she thought, since hustling Bellwether. “Photos, forensic reports, all to do with the… the big case. Ni… Wilde and I had them in our apartments to work from home.”

She looked up at Clawhauser then, giving her nose the slightest twitching, allowing the slightest tears to water her eyes, made her voice crack ever so slightly on just the right words. “I know that I should be home resting after what Wilde did to me, but I just… I thought I ought to give this all over to Delgato and his team at least. Then I’ll have maybe done s-something to help in this case.”

More than a few sniffles and hastily-blown noses could be heard from around them, but Judy didn’t dare look away from Clawhauser as the cheetah struggled not to lose it. “O-ohhh, that’s the s-sa-saddest thing I-I’ve ever… please, go on, do whatever you need to.”

Judy smiled, sure to keep it small and meek rather than the toothy grin she felt like giving. “Thank you, Benji. This really means a lot.” Bending down, she picked up the boxes once more and started past Clawhauser.

Three carefully measured steps later, she paused and turned back. “Oh, um, I’m sorry, but I was also wondering, do you know if Delgato’s in the building? I was wanting to, well, actually needing to, talk to him. To thank him, for making sure Francine made it out okay, and to apologize for everything going so wrong yesterday.”

Seeking comfort for the sadness now enveloping the room, Clawhauser answered between bites of a donut, “Oh, sorry, Jude. You just missed him. Bogo put him in charge of the investigation after you two… well anyway, he’s out interviewing the family of the last victim, if I remember right.”

“Really?” Judy’s ears ached from the strain of keeping her ears droopy. “Well, drat. I guess I’ll just leave a note at his desk or something, after dropping all this off. Take care, Ben.”

“Take care, Judy! I hope you get to feeling better soon!”

Once past Clawhauser, returning the files was easy. Judy took the boxes to the record-keeper’s desk at the front of the Records floor, not ten steps from the stairs, she signed off on a clipboard handed to her by the old boar saying that she had, indeed, been the one to return the files, and then that was that.

Judy waited until the boar and her porcupine assistant had turned away to return the files to their proper shelves, checked that there were no other officers around to see her, and slipped around a corner and into one of the countless aisles filling that floor. Two turns and three more aisles down and she made it to the row of computers sized for animals like her, on and waiting to be used.

Checking once more that nobody was around to see, Judy took a seat and with the press of a few buttons pulled up ZPD employee records. “Let’s see here… Delgato…”

_Name: Calisto Delgato._   
_Age: 50._   
_Species: Tiger._   
_Sex: Male._   
_Date of Precinct 1 assignment: January 12th, 1986._   
_History and service record: Lieutenant Delgato joined the Zootopia Police Department following a dishonorable discharge for—_

Judy read down the page faster than she’d read anything since her days at the academy, eyes widening and ears drooping with every paragraph.

“Oh… shit.”

*

Happytown High-Rise, despite its aspiring name, rose only to five stories tall. Fine, perhaps, for the near-century ago when it had originally been built, but nothing special by modern standards even in old, forsaken Happytown. That its accommodations could only be charitably described as on-par with those of the Grand Pangolin only helped its reputation as a hive for lowlifes, vandals, and the sorts of predators that gave their kinds bad names.

Walking the hallways at complete ease with himself and his surroundings, Nick stopped at the apartment door of the kindest soul he knew and gave the aging but solid wood three hard knocks, followed by two soft knocks.

Ten seconds passed where all Nick heard from the apartment was a muffled shuffling and a small, worrisome cough, and then the unlatching of half a dozen locks of every shape and kind. The door swung open and there in a faded violet blouse stood tall vixen, weathered and slightly bent in her age, but with a pair of glimmering green eyes that spoke of a far younger, kinder soul.

“Nicholas, it’s been ages!” Marian Wilde backed up from the door, face beaming as she rubbed her upper arms for warmth. “Come on, get in here before you catch a cold. Or worse, make your poor, grandkit-less mother catch one!”

The hallways seeming to lack any kind of protection against the outside elements, Nick didn’t hesitate to oblige, shutting and locking the door before scooping the older fox up in a hug. She eeped, but returned the hug all the same. “Goodness, Nicky, what’s all this about? Finally come to tell me you proposed to that nice Hopps girl?”

A stab of pain through his heart and Nick set his mother back down, hiding the hurt of recent days away behind a smile. “No, nothing like that, I’m afraid. I’ve just… been missing you, lately. I’ve only got one mom, after all, heh.”

Marian’s eyes narrowed. The next moment Nick was whimpering as he was dragged by the ear into the apartment’s tiny living room, whereupon he was thrown with surprising strength into one of the two overstuffed armchairs. Before he could do more than orient himself on the traitorously comfy piece of furniture, his mother took her seat in the other armchair and fixed him in place with a Mother’s Stare. “Nicholas Piberius Wilde. I understand that your police work is sensitive and sometimes there are going to be things you can’t tell me about, shouldn’t tell me about, or can’t bring yourself to tell me about. But when those times come, I expect you to at least lie well, boy.”

Nick didn’t think he could have felt more thoroughly torn down if Judy had been the one telling him off. Slumping into his seat, he ran a paw over his head as he mulled over the best way to start this conversation. “Well, Mom, I guess… how… how well do you remember Dad?”

Marian flinched back as if struck. That steely stare turned to one of hurt and confusion. “What? Why did you ask that, Nicholas?”

It hurt to watch the wrinkles around his mother’s eyes tighten, to watch his nails dig into the chair’s armrests, to see her ears flatten and hackles rise. Nick looked away from her, studying the faded patterns of the wallpaper across the room. “It’s the latest case we’re working on, Judy and I. The new Wendigo killings.”

“Horrible things, those. Just horrible.”

Nick nodded, wishing suddenly that he had Judy there to support him through this. “The other day, Judy and I were going through the police records for the original murders all those years ago. One of them was… Mom, one of them was a fox. Dad.”

Silence. Nick let it stretch on for a minute until he couldn’t stand it any longer and looked from the wallpaper to his mother, plastered to her chair like roadkill. “Mom?”

“But… the police, the news, they…”

"He was a fox,” said Nick, making no attempt no to hide the resentment he felt at having to say those words. “What would they say about him when there are the lives of more respectable mammals to talk about?”

Marian nodded to this. A few tears escaped her eyes before her whole countenance hardened, not steel now but stone, old and bearing the signs of storms long-weathered. “He never left us, then. Once more he is my husband and your father. I… Nicholas, thank you.”

He smiled at this, or tried to, before his thoughts turned to the other reason he had come there. Glancing out a nearby window speckled by falling snow, Nick frowned at the time of day and stood.

“Listen, Mom, I need to get you out of the city for at least tonight, preferably longer.”

To her credit, the older fox waited until she was in her bedroom and folding clothes into an ancient luggage bag to ask her questions. “Why? What’s happened, Nicky? Please don’t tell me you did something to piss off a serial killer.”

In the bathroom, Nick stumbled over one of the first swears he’d heard his mother utter in his entire life, before shaking his head and resuming gathering her medicines, toothbrush, whatever he could think of into a Ziploc bag. “Maybe, sorta, it’s a little unclear at the moment. Long story short, new murders are following the course of the old murders and a fox is up next.”

“And you think…?”

“Well, if this were a movie and the killer had any idea how close Judy and I are to figuring him out…”

Striding back into the bedroom, Nick let Marian pack the Ziploc bag into the larger luggage, before grabbing its handles and starting for the door. Marian followed, turning off all the lights and grabbing her purse. “Where are we going? Mr. Big’s place?”

Nick paused with his paw on the door handle to consider that, before shaking his head and turning back to her. She was handling everything like a champion so far and he couldn’t feel prouder of her, but this next part might be the step too far. “Judy called, and her parents would be more than happy to have you over to their place for a while. There’s a, uh, there’s a train leaving for Bunnyburrow in half an—”

Marian’s eyes grew wide, paws clutching her purse tight to her chest. “N-no, no train.”

Fighting the groan wishing to escape him, Nick reached a paw out to his mother’s shoulder and smiled. “Please, Mom, I promise they’re a lot safer and smoother than back in your—”

The jab to his gut left Nick wheezing. Now Marian glared up at him, the steel back in her eyes. “Nicholas, I said. No. Trains!”

*

Judy heard him coming long before she had to worry, bigger animals never quite being able to hide themselves from her ears. Closing all her tabs, she hopped from her chair and turned around just as Officer Johnson turned the corner to that secluded section of Records.

For a moment the two stared at each other, the lion seeming as surprised to see her as she was to see him. But then his eyes flicked to the computer behind her and a knowing smirk crossed his face. He took a few steps forward, arms crossing over his chest. “Judy… has anyone ever told you that you’re a real workaholic?”

“I…” She cleared her throat, offering up a weak laugh. “I think I might have heard that a few times. Mostly from N—Wilde, Officer Wilde. It’s a vice that’s worked out well for me so far though, so…”

Leaving the desk, Judy kept her walk embarrassed-but-casual as she headed for the lion and the exit past him. “Buuut, I get the feeling I’d better make myself scarce if I don’t want you telling on me to Chief Bogo, heh. Just need to—”

“You should keep a close eye on that fox of yours, Hopps.”

She froze level with him, heartbeat growing uneven as she looked up and left to Johnson’s distant eyes. “Wh-what?”

“You should keep an eye on Wilde,” the lion said, smile gone now. “For his safety. McHorn figured out after the last murder that they’re following the pattern of the old Wendigo killings. That means a fox is likely to be the next victim. We’re alerting the news stations and increasing patrols through fox-heavy areas, but there are a lot in Zootopia. It’d be horribly easy for one to… slip, through the cracks. You know?”

Judy’s chest hurt, heart feeling halfway between bursting and stopping. She reached up to grip her chest through the fabric of her shirt and jacket, struggling to keep her breathing strong and steady even as the world tilted around her. “Y-yeah, you’re right…”

The lion’s smile returned then, happy but in no way kind. “There’s the shock damage I was looking for. Wilde sure did a number on you, didn’t he? You know, you should go home. Rest up. Stay out of things. For your own health.”

The next few minutes were a confusing collage of vague moments to Judy, of stumbling through aisles of case files, past the porcupine assistant, of paw gripping the small mammal-sized bar as she dragged herself up the stairs. Somewhere in there might have been Clawhauser’s worried voice, the clatter of hooves and paws on smooth lobby flooring, then a burst of freezing air—

Judy found herself standing out near the middle of the street in front of the ZPD headquarters, staring across the way at the spray-painted mural adorning city hall. New details had been added to the Wendigo beast. Splotches of white where eyes might be, streaks going down the otherwise-featureless face like tear stains, and wound over and through the antlers streamed garlands of blue flowers. Night Howlers, some dazed part of Judy recognized.

The screech of breaking tires snapped Judy from her trance. She spun around, eyes wide at the sight of a van hurtling head-on toward her.


	9. The Confrontation

The van came to a screeching halt mere inches from Judy, close enough to send her staggering from the rush of air. Through the windshield she could see a fennec fox, Finnick, looking at her with wide eyes, like he was having a heart attack instead of her.

The next moment Nick jumped out of the van’s passenger seat and ran over to her, a panicked look to his face as he grabbed her by the shoulders. “Geeze, Judy, we almost hit you! I… what is it? What happened?”

Judy licked her lips and swallowed, turning to look first at the Wendigo mural, then back at the ZPD building. She wondered if Johnson was watching from one of those darkened windows, had seen the brush with death. “Johnson’s involved… I don’t know how… but he’s involved.”

Nick let off a swear Judy would have gasped at in her younger years, before wrapping an arm around her shoulders and leading her around the van to its back door. “Come on, let’s get out of here. Save the shocking revelations for the van. It sounds like we both have a lot to talk about.”

As they passed by the driver-side door Finnick poked his head out the window, looking less angry and more concerned than Judy was used to from the borderline-criminal. “Hey Hopps, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she found herself saying, her eyes trailing over the intricate fantasy drawings adorning the van’s sides as she and Nick passed them. “Just fine, thank you for asking.”

Nick gave her a Look as she said this, but said nothing in turn as they reached the back of the van and he threw the doors open. Hopping in first, he turned and held a paw out to help her help. Judy took a moment to judge the distance to jump and her own still-erratic heartbeat, before shrugging and accepting the help. For the moment.

“Hello, Judy dear!”

Judy blinked, surprised by the sight of Nick’s mother sitting there amongst the musical instruments, blankets, and packs of beer cans-turned-chairs that cluttered Finnick’s van. “Oh! Uh, hello, Mrs. Wilde. It’s nice to see you. Surprising, but nice.”

The van shook as Nick slammed the back doors shut, perhaps harder than he needed to, before stomping past Judy to the front of the van and rapping Finnick’s chair. The van shook again as it began moving once more, and only then did he sigh and slump against the opposite wall from his mother. “Miss Scaredy-pants here refused to ride the train to Bunnyburrow despite my every insistence of their safety. Thankfully, ol’ Finnick here’s a real gentleman and—”

Mrs. Wilde reached over and smacked Nick’s knee with her purse, making him eep and give her a scandalized look. “Oh, hush up with that scaredy-pants nonsense before I tell everyone how old you were before you finally stopped sleeping with a nightlight!” And then, to Finnick up front, “But really, thank you, Mr. Finnick. You really are quite the gentleman to little ol’ me.”

A deep, rumbling chuckle echoed from the driver’s seat. “It ain’t no big deal, Marian. You know I can’t say no to pretty ladies like you.”

Judy, following all this from where she’d taken a seat near the rear doors, thought it time for her to come to Nick’s rescue as the fox’s face fluctuated through several fascinating shades of green. “Right, well, my parents are going to love having you over, Mrs. Wilde—”

“Judy, please, call me Marian.”

Judy smiled, as much at the matronly fox as at the feeling of her heartbeat finally starting to return to something resembling normal. “Right, Marian. But anyways, Nick and I have some stuff to discuss on the, uh, on the…”

“The Wendigo case,” said Nick, helping her out. “And don’t worry, it was a long drive from home, she’s as filled in as anyone can be.”

“Oh! Um, good!” Judy cleared her throat, an act which turned into a short coughing fit. She waved Nick away as he reached a paw out to her and put on a smile. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Work now, worry later. I learned some interesting stuff down at the ZPD. Delgato served in the military for one year, working out of the San Dingo Marine Corps base, before getting dishonorably discharged for the alleged, though never confirmed, murder by mauling of a fellow soldier, a horse. Later he joins ZPD, and that same year the Wendigo serial killings happen, also by mauling. For the rest of his career he coasts along as a beat cop, then a detective, always staying in positions he can keep his claws sharp. There have been a few accusations of police brutality over the years, but nothing anybody made much noise over.”

“It’s nothing that would hold up in court, but it could at least get Bogo’s attention.” Nick reached down, plucking a can of beer out from one of the countless cases sitting around and popping it. After a long swig he turned to the front of the van. Out beyond the window, the world shone bright and warm as they transitioned from downtown to Sahara Square, one of the two districts in Zootopia not affected all that much by winter. “Finn, old pal, you get any dirt on Taylor Monahan?”

A grunt came from the front seat. The fennec fox’s ears, the only visible parts of him from where Nick and Judy sat, twitched in annoyance. “Yeah, I got some dirt, so don’t say I never did nothing for ya. The guy moved here from San Dingo about two years back. Before that he was a soldier, stationed—”

“At the San Dingo Marine Corps base,” Judy finished, earning a glare from the fox. “That’s perfect. The ZPD recruits from soldiers whose tours of duty are ending all the time. So, there’s one connection between Monahan and Delgato.”

The van pulled into a storage depot, rolling to a stop in front of a unit near the back. The engine shut off and Finnick turned in his seat to look at them. “Get ready for another one. Our guy Monahan got dishonorably discharged, just like the tiger of the hour. Not alleged murder, but I bet assault on a civilian’s gotta count for something.”

Nick’s eyes narrowed, his grip on the beer tightening until the can crumpled. Beside him, Judy gave a growl more befitting of a predator. It was Marian, however, who spoke up. “That is a very cruel mammal you have there.”

The four sat there in silence for a long moment, the truth of that statement self-evident. Nick looked at Judy, frowning. “You said something about Johnson when we picked you up?”

Having completely forgotten this during the conversation about Monahan and Delgato, Judy’s ears drooped as she remembered back to that encounter down in ZPD Records. “I’m not really sure what happened. He caught me as I was looking up info on Delgato, made a comment about me being a workaholic, said I should keep my nose out of things…”

She swallowed, gaze flickering around to the three foxes sitting there and watching her, finally settling on Nick. “He also said I… should keep an eye on you, Nick. Said it’s really easy for a fox to ‘slip through the cracks.’ His words, not mine.”

Nick swallowed, one of his paws finding one of Judy’s and squeezing it. From the driver’s seat Finnick whistled. “These big cats sure aren’t big on subtlety. Only way to make that a more blatant threat would be to be holding a baseball bat while saying it.”

Judy started to nod at this, stopped as what the fennec fox had said registered to her. “Delgato, Johnson, Monahan, they’re all big cats… that’s got to mean something…”

“It probably does,” said Nick, standing and pulling Judy up with him by the paw. “But that’s going to have to wait until later. We might have a little something called daylight running out on us.”

“Right,” said Judy, pulling free of Nick’s holding and turning to his mother. “Mrs.—sorry, Marian, it was great seeing you again, even if under some of the worst circumstances possible, but your son and I have a lead to follow. Talking to Monahan is our best chance right now to figure things out.”

“Of course, dear!” The elder fox stood and, before Judy could react, gave her a warm, motherly hug. Pulling away, she patted the bunny on the head. “Only… take care of yourself, won’t you? And my son while you’re at it? I know you’re both professionals, but… well, a mother worries, you know?”

“I know,” said Judy, smiling. Backing away, she went around Nick as he went in for a hug of his own and gave Finnick a fist-bump. “And you take care of yourself too, Finn. Thanks for all your help.”

“No problem,” he said. He smiled and flashed Nick a wink as he and Judy opened the back of the van and jumped out. “You two watch yourselves! Ain’t no shame in running away instead of going out in some damned-stupid blaze of glory!”

“Duly noted,” said Nick, giving a salute before shutting the door. With no chance of the van’s occupants hearing him he then said “Not that there’s always a choice in the matter.”

Judy waited until the van had backed up, turned, and driven off before turning her attention to the storage unit they’d come to. She’d passed that particular depot plenty of times while cruising on patrol with Nick, but saw nothing to make this particular unit stand out from all the rest. “So what’s this, then? Mr. Wilde’s winter home away from home?”

Nick laughed, putting in no effort to hide its fakeness as he strolled up to the unit’s door. He talked as he fished around in his pockets for the key. “Hah hah, very funny. No, this is a humble conman’s special stash. The go-to place for cons and hustles requiring a bit more, you know, STUFF than it’s really worthwhile to hang onto on a daily basis. Ahah!

Holding the key up as if it was some great treasure, he undid the padlock and started tugging at the sliding door. “Haven’t been here since I joined the ZPD, but thought it was too useful to just get rid of. Good thing too, if we’re gonna get to Monahan’s house in one piece.”

Judy’s ears perked. Hurrying forward, she started helping with the rusted door. “W-why’s that? Where’s Monahan live?”

*

Judy hated the Nocturnal district.

No, she thought, hate was too strong a word. She deeply, thoroughly, achingly disliked the Nocturnal district. The underground realm, nearly as large as all the rest of the Zootopia districts added together, played host to just as varied a population. It had the bats, as anyone would expect, and moles, and shrews, opossums, foxes, raccoons, living lives honest and corrupt, just like those on the surface. There also lived countless other species, mammals who for one reason or another preferred to link in the dark and dank.

Not that all of the Nocturnal district was dark and dank, some rough cavern filled with guano and ramshackle huts, though such areas existed. Beneath the Meadowlands were the Neon Fields, acres and acres of bioluminescent mushrooms and flowers glowing colors beyond imagining, home to the hottest dance clubs in Zootopia. Beneath Downtown was an almost-mirror image of hanging skyscrapers, the central nervous system of the vast computer networks that kept Zootopia's environmental systems running.

But then... there was the cavern beneath Tundratown. As bleak and cold as Hell itself, only the poorest, the hardiest, or those with the most to hide ever tried to eke out a living in the Barrens. No sun, only crumbling towers like giant streetlights to cast the land in eternal twilight. No native flora or fauna, only, only the rare greenhouse or pet lost from warmer climes. Not even enough natural moisture for snow or frost. Barren.

"I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. Sweet cheese and crackers do I hate this..."

"Cons-si-serve... breath... f-fo-for walking, C-C-Carrots..."

The pair trudged side by side across the stony landscape, each covered head to foot in the thickest, warmest cold-weather gear hustling money could buy, shoulders bent beneath the weight of packs stuffed with blankets, food... and guns. Real guns. Judy had balked at first at carrying the rifle(sized for Finnick, close enough for her), but Nick had insisted. Refused, even, to leave the storage unit until she packed the deadly instrument and its ammunition.

"Animals go crazy down in the Barrens, Carrots. I wouldn't even trust our badges to slow down someone wanting our packs. I'm sorry."

Judy would have to apologize to Nick once they returned to somewhere the words didn't freeze in her throat. Waving badges hadn't stopped the trio of hyena hobos they encountered since getting down there, or the steroid-pumped boar, or the gaggle of scrabbling bobcats. Waving the guns had. It made her feel sick.

Cresting a rise in the ground, they saw a single-story house of solid concrete sprawling near the edge of a crag in the earth, no more than a dozen yards away.

"Th-that must be it," said Nick, arm automatically wrapping around Judy as she sidled up against him for mutual warmth. "Wh-what-t a l-lo-lovely sssecond home to ha-have on one's t-tax records."

"I d-don't like it," said Judy, staring at the single shuttered window facing in their direction. "Sh-shooting gallery, th-there."

"N-not that we ha-have mmmuch choice, though," said Nick. He pulled his appropriately sized rifle from its sling on his back. Judy noticed his paws shaking far too hard to make any kind of accurate shot. "It's g-go or become pa-pawpcicles!"

The walk to the building was the most terrifying dozen yards of Judy's life, every step spent expecting the door or window to crack open and BANG to shatter the frozen silence. Her heart felt ready to quit by the time they reached the slab of steel set into the structure's front wall. Leaning in the slim space between the door and the window, Judy let Nick take the lead in searching the immediate area as she worked to get down to where her heart didn’t feel like it was trying to punch through her chest. “I d-don’t… sup-p-pose… it’s unlocked…”

Nick shrugged and gave the handle a tug. It didn’t yield in the slightest. “Well, that hope’s a bust. But maybe…”

Walking around Judy, the fox gave the window shutters a try, before running his paws along the bottom of the windowsill. The sound of tearing tape resonated and Nick held aloft a key in triumph. “Ahah! Right where amateurs always leave their—”

It was too cold for this. Judy snatched the key from Nick’s hold, the bare metal burning with cold as she jammed it into the door’s lock and turned. A click resounded and the metal slab gave the slightest bit.

Nick’s paw on her shoulder stopped her before Judy could push her way. “W-wait, let me go first. You’re ssstill hu-hurting and sluggish from the shock, d-don’t even try to d-de-deny it. Plus, I’m a bigger target, I c-can draw any fire.”

“D-don’t be rid-di-diculous,” Judy said, unslinging her own rifle. “I’m sm-smaller, y-you c-ca-can shoot over mm-mme if you n-need t-to. I’ll g-go ffffirst!”

KA-CHUNK.

“How about you drop your guns and both go first?”

If the sound of a shotgun being pumped behind them didn’t make the pair freeze, the hard, haughty voice did the trick. Turning her head, Judy saw Taylor Monahan in heavy coat and scarf behind and several paces to their left, perhaps come from around the other side of the building at the sound of their arguing. At the range he stood, Judy knew the shotgun he carried would leave her as little more than a red smear on the wall.

“Didn’t you hear me? I said drop the rifles and go inside!”

Judy shared a look with Nick, the fox slowly nodding his head and setting his rifle to the ground. Biting her lip, Judy followed suit, kicking her weapon away for good measure. Anything to make the clouded leopard feel more in control, more sure, more liable to make a mistake. She had to fight the urge to smirk as Nick did the same and winked at her.

“Good, good.” Monahan walked until he was directly behind them. Not, to Judy’s frustration, close enough for either her or Nick to spin around and knock the shotgun away. “Now get in there, and keep where I can see you!”

There it was, their golden opportunity. Swallowing, Judy walked to and through the door, Nick keeping perfect pace at her left. The moment they were through into the almost Spartan den beyond, she turned and jumped to the right, at the same moment Nick leaping to the left.

“Damn it!”

Monahan charged through the doorway, turning to level his gun on where Nick crouched near stairs leading to some cellar area, but Judy moved faster, jumping from behind to deliver both feet to the middle of the leopard’s back. Even with the heavy winter coat cushioning the blow, a pained mrowl rang through the room as he pitched forward, the gun flying from his paws.

A moment later and Nick was there, delivering an uppercut to Monahan’s descending chip and sending his head snapping back. In the five seconds he reeled from this, Judy snatched the dropped shotgun from the carpeted floor, threw it down the stairs, and then drew and leveled a revolver at him. “On your knees, creep. Paws where I can see them.”

That scarred face twisted into a hateful scowl, but after a moment and Judy cocking the hammer on the revolver for emphasis, did as commanded. Judy smiled at this, not taking her eyes off Monahan as she nodded first to Nick, then to the door. “Take care of that, won’t you?”

“Sure thing, Carrots.” And then, as he edged past her to the door, “And by the way, you look way awesome right now.”

It took every ounce of Judy’s willpower not to role her eyes at that. “Don’t get used to it, Wilde. There are plenty of other guns I prefer handling.”

Nick slammed the door shut, locked it, and came back over, a rifle held in each paw and one eyebrow raised. “Oh, don’t I know it.”

A throaty growl from Monahan interrupted the playful banter, drawing all eyes back to him. “Oh, you two are disgusting. You’re like the emotional equivalent to my face.”

Judy lifted an eyebrow. Beside her Nick laughed. “Not bad! I can appreciate a mammal with a proper sense of self-deprecation. Because you know,” he said, setting Judy’s rifle aside and leveling his at the leopard, “if you ask me, the world would be a better place with fewer people who took themselves too seriously.”

“The world would be a better place without mammals like you two in it!”

Judy and Nick shared a look. “Now that,” she said, “combined with the holding us at gunpoint, and the secluded bunker hideaway, plus the rash of murders, sounds pretty bad to me. What about you, Nick?”

“Mhm, pretty bad, Carrots.” Smiling, the fox dug his ZPD badge out of his coat and held it up. “Bad enough that I for one feel pretty confident in waving this around and asking questions like, oh, I don’t know…” A jab of the rifle barrel to Monahan’s gut elicited a grunt from him. “What do you know about all this, Monahan? No way are you just a camera guy with a setup like this!”

The leopard growled again, but then smiled. The unmarred half of his face did, anyway, the right side already stuck in a lipless, cheek-less sneer. “Normally at this point I’d say something like ‘you’ve got nothing on me, coppers!’ But you two don’t really care about stuff like that, do you? Hard to when you’re on a first-name-basis with Mr. Big, isn’t it?”


	10. Hustled

Judy’s mouth went dry, her grip on the revolver tightening until her fingers ached. “How do you know—”

“Delgato told me.” Monahan licked his remaining lips and chuckled. “He told me everything. Your tolerated relationship with Mr. Big and his cronies, your history of threatening obstinate suspects with mob violence, how you weren’t even part of the force when you took down Bellwether, everything! And what's all this? A pair of mammals, not even cops, breaking and entering a private citizen’s home with no solid evidence? Oh, what would this city think, what would it DO, if it ever found out its hero cops were rotten down to the core? You think these people would still look up to you?”

“Is that what this has all been about?” Judy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. From the look on Nick’s face, he couldn’t either. “The murders, the terror, just to get at the two of us? To accomplish… what? Making us look bad? You could have just gone to the media with all that supposed ‘dirt’ if you wanted to drag us down!”

Monahan growled and made to stand up. Nick lifted his rifle and bared his fangs. “Nope, stay right there, kitty. “Come on, the bunny’s right, there were way easier ways to do this weird vendetta thing against our sterling reputations. Why dig up a decades-old cold case like the Wendigo Killer?”

Monahan rolled his eyes. “It’s not JUST about ruining you two. Exposing the weakness and corruption of the ZPD is just a delicious, delicious part of it. No, so much of it is simply for the thrill of the hunt.”

“The hunt!?” Ignoring Nick’s warning, Judy marched forward and jammed the barrel of her revolver against Monahan’s head. “Those aren’t birds are alligators or whatever out there, they’re people! This is everything Bellwether warned about!”

“Yeah,” the leopard said, good eye alight with glee. “Makes you regret stopping her, doesn’t it?”

Never before had Judy felt such a powerful urge to use violence to wipe a grin off a criminal’s face. Only Nick’s paw on her forearm kept her from doing something she knew, deep down, she would regret. And so, without saying a word to him, she let go of the last bit of hurt she’d held onto for him hitting her with his stun gun.

“I think,” said Nick after a moment, “that that’s enough about insane motives for now. Who else is in on this, Monahan? Just Delgato? Was that you down at Ratterson’s?”

Looking as if he had failed at some goal by not being shot by Judy, the leopard frowned and turned his gaze to the floor. “That was me. Can’t decide which I enjoyed more, taunting you about your daddy, or seeing you almost kill your partner. Heh, Delgato’s anger at me letting you two getting so close was almost worth it. And as for who else is in our merry little band of killers…”

He looked back up at them, good eye ablaze, fangs gleaming in a Hellish grin that made Judy’s heart skip a beat, and then another. “Are you only interested in our Precinct 1 members, good ol’ Delgato, Johnson, Trunkaby, Higgins? Or those in the other Zootopia precincts? Or… maybe the Bunnyburrow branch while I’m at it?”

*

Getting to Monahan's bunker through the Barrens had taken half an hour. Judy forced herself and Nick to make it back to the central Nocturnal district and its elevators to the surface in twenty minutes, plus ten to tie Monahan up and throw him in a lockable closet. A flash of a badge got them the first express elevator up.

It took fifteen minutes to fight through the late afternoon traffic to ZPD headquarters, talk their way past Clawhauser, and get the keys to their cruiser.

211 miles sat between Zootopia and Bunnyburrow. With the snow and ice forcing Judy to keep to reasonable speeds despite every desire to slam the gas pedal down until it broke, it took three hours to make the drive. For half that time Chief Bogo had been shouting at them through the cruiser's built-in police radio, demanding explanations at first, then bellowing orders once Judy spat out that explanation, the most bare-bones recap of their trip to Monahan’s bunker and what led to it.

Slow down. Report back to the station. Cool their heads. Let mammals in actual uniform check out whatever might or might not be happening in Bunnyburrow. Judy ignored it all, attention split between the road ahead and Nick’s increasingly-panicked attempts to get Stu, Bonnie, his mom, Finnick, ANYONE to answer the phone. Not one call got through.

Somewhere in all of this, in the transition from knee-jerk panic to grim resolve, Nick looked over at her and spoke in a voice too low and scared to belong to him. “What if it’s all a trick? A lie to make us look like idiots, or get us out of the city, or, or—”

“If it is,” said Judy, the snow-capped trees and rolling hills blurring past as she stepped harder on the gas, “then it is.” Visions of her family, her siblings, the little bunny kits, littering the halls of her childhood home with the faces carved off and blood drenching the walls, danced before her eyes. The steering wheel creaked in her grip. “I can’t… take that chance.”

“No,” said Nick, facing forward again and giving his cellphone another try. “I can’t either.”

She glanced over at him, her heart aching for the dejected fox. “I can pull over. Go on myself. You’ve worked so hard for a better life. I don’t want to ruin—”

“I know, Judy. I know.” And he tried to smile then, tried so hard Judy felt like crying. “But even if Finnick and my mom weren’t with your folk, I’d stay in this car with you anyway. Foxes are stubborn like that.”

No more words passed between them for the rest of the drive, no more words possible.

An indistinct amount of time later and Judy saw the familiar turnoff to the family home. She took it, barely slowing down as she did so, as in the passenger seat Nick retrieved a pair of tranquilizer guns from the glove compartment and began loading them. As much as both of them wanted, horrible as it was, to deal any threats to their families with REAL guns, Judy dared not risk a missed shot around so many civilians.

After another three minutes of driving and past a hilly bend, there stood the Hopps farmhouse in the police cruiser’s headlights, Finnick’s van and a half-dozen other vehicles Judy recognized as belonging to the family spread throughout the front yard. Judy pulled the cruiser to as fast a stop as she dared, before killing the engine and squinting at the building, it’s familiar shape against the encroaching dusk suddenly foreign and foreboding.

“Everything looks… normal,” said Nick. “I mean, as I assume how it’d look, never coming here before. But it’s all… peaceful.”

Judy, scanning the nearby vehicles, the brick and wood front and upper floors of the house, the hill into which so much more of the house had been built, had to agree. Everything looked as she would expect it to on any normal night. No fallen bodies. No damage to the vehicles or what they could see of the house. Even the lights inside were on, their warm glow shining through the front windows to welcome all comers.

“Hopps,” rang Chief Bogo’s voice from the radio, making Judy and Nick jump. The police chief had been silent for a long while. “I need you and Wilde to come back to Zootopia. Speaking not as your boss, but as your friend. Please. Something’s happ—”

Judy turned the radio off, before taking the tranquilizer gun Nick offered her and jumping out of the vehicle. With Nick following close behind they approached the farmhouse’s porch and front door, ears cocked and eyes glancing now and then to the surrounding vehicles as they passed them, wary of an ambush. From ahead, inside the building, Judy could only just make out a number of voices, indistinct through the wood and distance. Most of them sounded scared though, some of them angry, and that was enough to make Judy quicken her pace up the porch steps—

CREEAAK.

Judy froze, Nick stumbling not to run into her from behind as she looked down at the traitorously creaky porch step. Her ears fell as the voices inside the house quieted, replaced by countless footsteps. Sharing a look with Nick, Judy swallowed and raised her tranq gun, finger tightening on the trigger as the front door flew open—

“JUDY! Oh, Stu, she’s alright!”

Judy lowered her weapon at once, mouth dropping as her parents ran out onto the porch to envelop her in a bone-crushing hug, accompanied by an avalanche of her siblings. They smothered her, poking and grabbing and shouting and crying, Judy starting to cry too as she holstered her weapon and worked to return all the hugs she could. And then, through the press of long ears she saw Marian come out the front door, wading through the bunny horde to grab Nick in a hug herself, one he easily returned. The sight made Judy hug her own parents all the harder.

“I was so scared for all of you. I thought… I was told… you might have been in danger.”

At this her parents broke their hug and stepped back, enough for Judy to see the confusion and fear on their faces. "Worried about us?" asked Bonnie, the motherly rabbit's nose twitching like mad. "Bun-bun, we've been scared sick about you! First Mrs. Wilde and her fennec friend show up, and then there's all this horrible stuff on the news and you weren't answering your cell phone and-"

"Wait, what?" Nick broke off his hug and took a step toward Judy and her parents, pulling his phone from his pocket as he came. "We didn't get any calls, Mrs. Hopps. We spent the entire drive here trying to call you! I--"

He paused, frowning as he turned and started back for the police cruiser. Judy watched him go a moment before looking back to her parents, who along with Mrs. Wilde looked as lost as Judy felt. "We... Nick and I tracked down the new Wendigo Killer. He had help within the ZPD and... and he implied he had accomplices in Bunnyburrow too. We... thought you all were in danger..."

"Judy..." Stu, her father, looked at a complete loss for words. "That's not what the news is saying at all."

Judy's stomach dropped, sudden understanding hitting her like Nick's stun gun all over again.

"A signal jammer!" Nick ran back to the group, a small black box held aloft in his paw. "There was a signal jammer stuck to our roof! No calls could get in or... what did I miss?"

*

It was like watching a mockery of her own life.

There on the family den’s flatscreen TV, clear as day and impossible to mistake for anything else, Judy watched in growing horror as she and Nick first beat Taylor Monahan around, and then held the clouded leopard at gunpoint for several minutes, before tying him up, shoving him (roughly, so much more roughly than Judy remembered) through a door just on the edge of the screen, propping a chair against the door, and then leaving. The high angle of the hidden camera hid nothing as the Judy in the video yelled and screamed at the seemingly-helpless Monahan, jabbing her revolver with reckless abandon at him, Nick hitting his gut with his rifle barrel. All of it there, all of it true, yet so, so wrong at the same time.

The recording ended after Nick and Judy walked back outside, cutting back to Zootopia News Network’s snow leopard and moose news anchors.

“The preceding footage has been confirmed genuine by several experts, both with the ZPD and ZNN. Coworkers have confirmed that these are indeed Sergeant Judy Hopps and Detective Nick Wilde, former hero cops of Zootopia, now possibly the city’s most notorious villains. The footage originates from the private security camera of a Mr. Taylor Monahan, the poor leopard seen here being menaced by the once-heroic duo. In his testimony, Monahan claimed to have discovered evidence of Hopps’ and Wilde’s involvement in the renewed Wendigo Murders.”

The feed of the two news anchors was replaced by footage of Monahan in a non-descript room, shaking in his seat. To Judy’s disgust, Delgato and Higgins flanked him, the hippo’s hand on one of his shoulders in a seeming show of comfort and support. “I… thought it strange how Officer Hopps had been at both of those first two murders, like, this is a really big city, you know? What are the chances? I tried not to make too big a deal out of it at first. At least, not until I went to the ZPD with what I thought might have been footage of the killer escaping the train. They both got really… aggressive, after that. They took my camera, saying they needed it for evidence, but… but then I got a call later from an Officer Johnson and he said the camera was missing from Evidence. I couldn’t keep my nose out of it after that, and that’s when I found out about Wilde and his dad.”

Standing near the left-most couch, Judy felt Nick’s paw take hers and squeeze. She squeezed back as best she could, gaze never leaving the TV.

Things switched back to the news station, where a photo of Nick in full police uniform appeared next to Peter Moosebridge. “Detective Nicholas Piberius Wilde, ZPD’s first fox police officer, was revealed by inside sources to be the son of one of the original Wendigo Killer’s victims, a Mr. James Wilde. Speculation runs rampant that—”

The TV clicked off, none of the bunnies or foxes present raising any objection. From where she stood on Nick’s opposite side Mrs. Wilde seethed, paw shaking as she clutched the remote. “It’s lies. All lies. My son is not… OUR CHILDREN are not killers and thugs!”

Bonnie, sitting on the side of the couch in front of them, nodded and held onto her husband tighter. “I couldn’t have said it better myself. You two,” she said, looking up at Judy and Nick. “You two saved all of Zootopia only a few years ago from that awful Night Howler business! I can’t understand how anyone can believe that footage they showed!”

Judy’s mouth felt awfully, horribly dry. “Actually, Mom, that… that was real. But it isn’t what it looked like!” she shouted as several dozen shocked pairs of eyes turned to look at her. “That guy, Monahan, HE is one of the killers! That footage was of us getting him to confess! The tiger and hippo standing next to him, those were some of his partners! It’s all a trick, a plot, a, a—”

“Hustle,” said Nick, the first time he had spoken since they’d started watching the news on their supposed reign of terror. Letting out half a laugh and half a sob, he leaned against the couch and pressed his face into his paws. “It’s all been one giant hustle. Goodbye, hero cops Hopps and Wilde. Hope you enjoyed that better life while it lasted.”

Judy looked to Marian over her son’s bent form, before with her reaching out to rub circles across his back. “It’s going to be okay, Nick. We’ll figure something out,” she said, as much for her sake as for his, struggling to keep herself calm, to not let her quivering heart get the better of her once again. From the way her parents’ ears kept turning to her, they heard the bad rhythm as clear as she felt it. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Hopefully before the fuzz come looking for you two losers,” said Finnick as he strode back into the den from where he’d been keeping an eye out on the front yard. “No sign of anybody yet, though. Maybe you’ve still got some friends in blue… say, you ain’t looking too good, Hopps.”

“I’m fine,” snapped Judy, immediately waving away the worried looks given her by those present. She coughed, then took a swaying step past Finnick toward the front door. “Nick, Marian, help my mom get these kids to bed. I just… I need to make a phone call.”

*

Chief Bogo’s smartphone rang where it sat on his desk. At the sight of the one number he’d been dreading more than any other he waved Fangmeyer and Wolford out of the room, waiting until the wolf pair closed the door behind them before answering the phone. “You are in deep shit.”

“I know, sir,” said Hopps across the line. To Bogo’s worry she sounded pained and short of breath. “I’m begging you, sir, please don’t believe what they’re saying about us. Monahan’s lying, that video going around is of us getting a confession! He’s the killer, and he’s been getting help from other cops!”

Bogo groaned, closing his eyes and rubbing his forehead. “I don’t need this, Hopps. I truly don’t. Even if I did believe you, there’s just too much stacked against you to rely only on your word. The video, the revelation about Wilde’s personal connection to this case, damning character testimonies from Delgato and Johnson, a lack of solid alibis for your whereabouts during any of the murders—”

“They’re two of the ZPD officers working with Monahan! And I was minding that cub on the train!”

“And only you, not Wilde!” Bogo opened his eyes and glanced toward his door, making sure nobody had been drawn by his shout before continuing. “And damn it, Hopps, I know about Delgato! It’s too perfect that you warn me about him and then he suddenly be ready to out you and Wilde as the murderers, but it doesn’t matter because there’s NO PROOF! Mayor Swinton is ordering for your arrests, and sooner or later I am going to have to obey those orders, whether I want to or not!”

“Just give us tu-time!” Hopps wheezed, before falling into a coughing fit that made Bogo’s lungs hurt just listening to it. Her heart must have been killing her. “T-time to find what we need to prove ourselves innocent! There has to be SOMETHING you can d-do!”

Bogo, already frowning, turned to glare at his map of Zootopia and its immediate surroundings. For several seconds, civic duty and trust in his officers warred within his thoughts, before with a snort he shoved that all aside and made a Decision. “There was another murder half an hour ago. A Mr. Reginald Reynard, grey fox, Savannah Central shopkeeper. This means a yak will be the next victim and I need the ZPD and the city to prepare accordingly. It also means that, for now, the public at large believes you and Wilde to still be in Zootopia. Therefore, it only makes sense for me to keep my forces here.”

The breathing coming across the line slowed, calmed. “Sir, are you saying—”

“Two days,” said Bogo, looking back to his door. “Forty-eight hours to find something to convince the whole world it’s wrong. You fail, I’m coming for you myself. Am I clear?”

“… crystal clear, sir.”

*

Judy shut and locked the front door, before trudging her way back down the several corridors (their bright colors and countless happy photos hanging from them mocking her) to the den she’d left the others in. Her mother, father, and all her siblings were nowhere to be seen, but Nick and Marian and Finnick all looked up at her from where they’d been huddled on a couch, talking in low tones she hadn’t tried to eavesdrop on.  
Seeing their worried looks, Finnick’s more guarded, Nick’s heartbreaking in its openness, Judy tried to smile. “I’ll show you to the guest rooms. We have a busy day tomorrow.”


	11. Every Day I'm Hustling

Morning came early for the Hopps household, as it did for any farm. This was a decided advantage when time was short and lives were literally on the line. By the time the sun peaked over the horizon Judy was already up and dressed, up on the surface level of the house and helping her mother and a number of brothers and sisters out in the kitchen there. Mrs. Wilde, Marian, joined them a few minutes later, joining in on the family rhythm with surprising ease. Judy had to smile at the kick her family seemed to get at the purely vegetarian Wildes.

The sun was well and truly up by the time Nick stumbled into the auxiliary dining room set aside for their small Zootopia group, dressed in a black turtleneck and cradling a still-slumbering (and deafeningly snoring) Finnick in his arms. “May you never say I’m not a morning person again, Carrots. Not next to this guy, at any rate.”

Finnick woke up fast enough once the platters of pancakes and mugs of coffee started getting set out, releasing one thundering yawn before disappearing into the nearest, biggest cup of coffee he could find.

As they ate, a radio on the table tuned to a Zootopia news station in case of any new developments in the case, they discussed their next move.

“I’ve seen plenty of security camera footage in my day, believe it or not. And that video going around is not from a security camera. The image? Way too clear. I’d wager it’s from another one of Monahan’s personal cameras hidden atop a bookshelf or something. We didn’t exactly do a thorough sweep of the place or anything while we were there.”

“No, we didn’t.” Judy snatched the maple syrup from Nick and poured some more onto her plate. “And that implies he knew, or at least guessed, that we would show up there eventually. I REALLY hate being that predictable.”

“Might this be a good thing, though?” Marian looked around at them, having already finished her own, much smaller, stack of food and settled back with a glass of orange juice. “I mean, if it’s a regular video camera, doesn’t that mean it caught audio too? You said that was all Monahan confessing and naming some of his partners, right?”

“Monahan did talk a lot about how good his camera’s audio was,” said Nick, setting his fork down to lean back and tap his chin. “But then… no, if they were smart enough to set all this up, they’ve surely gotten rid of any version of that footage with sound. It’s what I would do, anyway. We’d have to get an entirely new confession out of him.”

“So, just do that.”

All eyes turned to Finnick as the tiny fennec fox joined in on the conversation for the first time. He looked back at them and grunted. “What, like it’s ever been hard for you two? You losers have taken down government conspiracies with no more than a carrot pen and a couple of blueberries!”

“It’s not that simple.” Appetite leaving her, Judy pushed her half-finished plate away and turned to face Finnick to her left. “With Bellwether it was as simple as letting her think she’d won, get her talking, and then let the police show up. This time the bad guys really have basically won, AND, the police are as likely to arrest us as they are to listen to anything we have to say.”

“Plus,” added Nick, pushing his completely-finished plate away, “there isn’t exactly anything we can replace with a blueberry this time around. Kind of a big issue.”

“But there has to be something!” Marian’s shout carried a tone of mounting panic. She swept her gaze around, green eyes begging for one of them to give her an optimistic answer. “There has to be something, some way for you two to prove yourselves innocent, surely!”

“It can’t be about that.”

All eyes turned once more to Judy. Bonnie, coming in to see if they needed any refills or seconds, froze in the doorway behind her. Judy ignored their gazes, keeping her eyes focused on her clenching paws in her lap. “It mustn’t be about that. Chief Bogo gave us two days to save ourselves, but that’s just two more victims we’re putting in harm’s way. That’s not what I became a police officer to do. I entered this profession to serve and protect, and that doesn’t stop when my own wellbeing is on the line or when I'm not wearing the badge.”

“Judy…” Bonnie walked over to the table, carefully placing a paw on Judy’s shoulder. “What are you saying?”

It was Nick who answered, his voice carrying the same grim, determined acceptance that Judy had felt come over her all of a sudden. “What she means, Mrs. Hopps, is that saving our own reputations is irrelevant. What matters is stopping Monahan, Delgato, and everyone else working with them. No matter what.”

Judy bit her lip as Bonnie’s paw tightened its grip on her shoulder. Reaching up, Judy placed her paw on her mother’s and locked eyes with the elder rabbit. She tried to smile. “It’ll be okay, Mom. I promise.”

“Ohhh… Judy…” Bonnie sniffled, wiping at her eyes with her free paw. “I thought I taught you better than to make p-promises you c-ca-can’t keep… I just wish there was some way we could help you…”

“Actually,” said Marian and Finnick at once, the two foxes sharing a surprised look before the fennec motioned for her to go on. Marian smiled her thanks before looking at her fellow mother. “Actually, this is probably going to sound crazy, but I think I have an idea on how you and your family can help…”

*

Benjamin Clawhauser had a lot of expectations going into work that morning. He expected to possess half his normal appetite from stress. He expected to field calls from countless citizens of Zootopia trying to report that they’d seen Judy Hopps or Nick Wilde lurking outside their house or in an alleyway or beside their business. He expected to have to excuse himself to go cry in the ZPD restrooms at least five times. He expected to have to do his darndest to hide his certainty in the innocence of his two best friends in the police force.

Much of this occurred as expect. But what the portly cheetah did not expect, and in all honesty could never have expected, was for an army of bunnies to come rolling in five minutes to lunchtime, two dozen at least, bunnies of all ages and sizes, hopping and jostling and shouting in excitement and nervousness and curiosity and, and—

“Excuse me! Down here!”

Clawhauser snapped out of his cuteness-induced daze, eyes sweeping the forest of bunny ears before landing on one matronly rabbit in a violet blouse, jeans, and coat, arms crossed and foot thumping. Immediately he flinched back, terror gripping his heart at being the target of such Motherly Rage. “H-hello, welcome to the ZPD, ho-how may I help y—”

In one hop the bunny was standing on top of the front desk, now managing to somehow look down on Clawhauser despite, well, being a bunny. “I am Bonnie Hopps, a hardworking farmer, a mother of nearly 300 children”—at which every non-rabbit woman in earshot winced—“and I demand to know how you ZPD monkeys dare to accuse my precious little Judy Hopps of being, being… some kind of maniac killer!”

By this point there wasn’t a pair of eyes in the ZPD lobby not watching the exchange, cops and criminals alike thrown totally off by the sheer size of the rabbit horde. Clawhauser, now having a good idea of where Judy had inherited her drive, sunk down in his seat. “I-I-well that is-I can’t comment on official ZPD policy or, or the decisions of city hall, b-but the video going around—”

If anything, Mrs. Hopps glare blazed hotter than ever. “Oh, as if video ever proved anything!”

“M-Mom…”

“Don’t they have movies here in Zootopia!? Who analyzed that video? What if it all was faked? My kids have made better home movies!”

“Mooommm…”

To Clawhauser’s relief Mrs. Hopps ceased in her tirade, redirecting her glare to somewhere to the side of the front desk. Following her gaze, he saw a bunny that might have been around Judy’s age, though significantly smaller than her, dressed in a heavy woolen coat that made her seem even smaller, a monstrous pair of horn-rimmed glasses obscuring her violet eyes.

Clawhauser’s mind focused on that last detail, a lightbulb going off inside his head. For a moment he felt like laughing.

Mrs. Hopps looked less than pleased by the interruption. “Ugh. Yes, Rudy? I am in the middle of something here!”

“Rudy” flinched at her mother’s tone, before turning to Clawhauser and, under the guise of pushing her glasses up, winked and glanced for a moment upstairs, to the offices. “S-Sir, this might be a r-re-really bad time, but, um, w-well… c-could you direct me to the restroom?”

These last few words came out as barely a squeak. Clawhauser could barely fight back his grin, now having a good idea of where Judy got her acting talent as well as he looked back and forth between “Rudy” and her mother. “Oh, well of course, sweetie, I’d be happy to! Or well, sorry, but I think I heard the appropriately-sized restrooms on the ground floor here are having problems, but if you just go up to the offices I’m sure a cute thing like you can—”

Several “Ooohs!” ran through the crowd of bunnies, Clawhauser squeaking and sinking into his chair again as Mrs. Hopps bristled before him. “Did you just call my daughter cute!? That is OUR word! I could have you sued! I could have your badge! I could call your boss down here right now! I—”

*

Without another word, ears drooping and body flinching at every shouted word from her mother, the young bunny slipped from the scene and hurried to the indicated stairs. Any that glanced her way felt sympathy for the stereotypical idea of the average bunny, paying her no more mind than that. Even so, the young rabbit kept up appearances all the way up the stairs, down the hallway and past offices both occupied and empty, right up to grabbing hold of the handle to the restrooms.

She paused, turning to look around her for anyone watching. At the sight of nobody she let go and walked to the door for Delgato’s office two doors down, shuffle turning into a stride, back straightening and shoulders dropping their hunch. Judy felt a small measure better than she did that morning to see Clawhauser, at least, trusted her.

The door was unlocked, to little surprise. Most officers in the precinct didn’t bother to lock their offices until they finished their shifts. Judy slipped in and closed the door behind her, considering locking the door for a moment before deciding that could rouse suspicion and instead heading straight for Delgato’s desk and the computer waiting there.

“Thank God he’s just a tiger and not an elephant, or this could turn into a round of gymnastics really fast…”

Judy had never been a technical kind of police officer. It wasn’t the branch of law enforcement that interested her. Close-quarters combat, high-speed chases, the satisfaction of reciting just which laws had done a criminal in, those were more her area. However, with nearly 300 siblings to call upon, luck had given her five pursuing computer-related professions, all of them eager to help.

As the computer turned on, Judy dug out from her heavy coat a slim computer tablet, a gift from a sibling with more than a slight propensity for hacking. She waited until the prompt for a login password came up before plugging in the tablet. The multitude of programs loaded onto the tablet transferred over and, ten seconds of letters and numbers streaming through the password box later, the computer dinged an acceptance and turned on the rest of the way. A moment of dissonance passed as she looked at the desktop background. It was a photo showing most of the precinct grouped together and smiling, the tiger near the center of the group, next to Chief Bogo and Clawhauser. She and Nick stood at the very front, arms over shoulders and throwing up victory signs. Every cop present was wearing the most garish of red and green sweaters, decorated all over with tiny bells.

“I remember that Christmas party…” It was a hard one to forget. Clawhauser had set up every doorway with mistletoe. Eventually, Nick and Judy’d had no choice but to share their first kiss. Delgato had laughed and cheered with all the rest, that night.

Wiping a paw at her suddenly moist eyes, Judy peeked her head out from behind the desk to make sure nobody was walking by the windows set to the left and right of the door, before setting to work. An app on the tablet had been labelled, in all capital letters, “FILE COPY”. Judy pressed it, then at a prompt for a specific word or phrase to search for typed in “MONAHAN”. She then watched as a progress bar popped up both on the tablet screen and on the computer and began to fill.

Ears perked as they were for the slightest sound of anyone coming down the hallway, Judy nearly jumped out of her skin when the computer loosed a cheery ding. Looking from the tablet to the computer screen, she saw that Yaxoo Messenger had sprung up, with one new message.

Judy lifted an eyebrow, before checking the program’s progress bar. Forty seconds remained until the file copying was complete. No movement could be heard out in the hallway. She figured she had two, maybe three minutes at most before her mom had to start winding down her tirade and her absence would be noticed.

“Well… it can’t hurt…”

A scroll and click of the mouse and the messaging program opened.

Cloudy_86: Yesterday went just swimmingly. Who is my yak target for tonight?

Judy stared wide-eyed at the message, struggling between a grin and a frown. There in front of her, surer than Monahan simply claiming it, was proof of Delgato’s involvement in the murders. Even as she set paw to keyboard to answer, a part of her hated this.

Trekker69: I’d be more pleased if Bogo were cooperative. But yes, a real success. Tonight, go for a yak named Yax. He runs the Mystic Springs Oasis in the Sahara district.

Cloudy_86: Ugh, that naturalist club. Why him?

The tablet next to Judy beeped, indicating the download had finished. She glanced to the windows and hurriedly ducked down as Higgins walked past, coming back up to type a response.

Trekker69: He was involved in Hopps’ search for the missing mammals all those years ago. No better reason.

Cloudy_86: Understood. Hail Miss White.

Caught off guard by this, Judy took a moment to respond.

Trekker69: Hail Miss White.

Judy logged off before any more could be said, turned off the computer, stuffed the tablet back into her coat, and headed for the door, resuming her hunched and meek persona as she went. It was time to go.

Downstairs, the ZPD lobby had finally returned to somewhat normal sound levels, Chief Bogo himself having come down to see what all the commotion was about. Judy let out a startled squeak at the sight of the cape buffalo escorting her mother and siblings to the doors, letting out a near-continuous stream of apologies as she ran to catch up to the group.

“—and I promise, if any possibility of your daughter being innocent presents itself, the ZPD will pursue it with—” He broke off as Judy reached them, locking eyes with her for the briefest moment before huffing and turning to walk back to the front desk. “Whatever. Just don’t be a nuisance to any of my officers.”

Judy kept her features meticulously embarrassed at this, slinking back into her horde of siblings to follow Bonnie out of the building. She caught her mother’s eyes and, at a questioning look, gave the briefest of smiles and a nod. The computer tablet sat heavy here it rested in her coat, solid, brimming with hope.

Outside, a block down, two vehicles waited, both large vans. On the side of one were plastered the words “Grey’s Bakery”. On the other van was a mural more befitting of a Heroic Fantasy novel. Judy followed the rest of her family toward the bakery van, breaking off at the last minute after a blink-and-miss-it hug from her mother and veered instead to Finnick’s van.

The moment she hopped inside and closed the door behind her Nick was there, hugging and petting and overall being quite intolerably fretful. “Oh thank God you’re okay! You’re okay, right? Your heart feels fine? What about your family? Did you have trouble—”

“I’m okay, I’m fine, quit it!” Judy gave him a small push to get some space, but smiled up at him anyway. As Finnick joined the flow of traffic leaving the ZPD she shrugged off her coat, glasses, and scarf. “Everything went better than we could have hoped for.”

Nick, having finally calmed down a measure, lifted an eyebrow. “Better how?”

She smiled wider and held up the tablet and all it contained. “This is going to take a long while to sort through, but in the meantime, you and I have a date at the Mystic Spring Oasis.”

“If it’s the kind of date you two usually end up in,” said Finnick from the driver’s seat, “you might want to take some backup this time.”

*

Chief Bogo’s laptop dinged, signaling the arrival of an email. He frowned at it and motioned for Trunkaby and Higgins to pause in their pouring over the city map. Opening his laptop, Bogo pulled up his Yaxoo account and saw one email from Officer Hopps.

“Taken from Delgato’s work computer,” read the email, making Bogo groan as he remembered the all-too-recent encounter with Mrs. Hopps and that swarm she called her children. “Don’t trust him, Johnson, Higgins, or Trunkaby.”

The frown deepened as Bogo glanced at the other two officers in the room, both of them looking curiously over his way. This was ridiculous. It hadn’t even been one day yet. Surely Hopps and Wilde hadn’t…

“Pack it up, you two. Go check up on Johnson, see how the registering of the city’s yak population is going.”

With only the slightest grumbling, the pair of officers did as ordered. Bogo waited until the door was shut before clicking on the first attachment, a Word document. As he read, his stomach sank.


	12. Space Oddity

“Hey.”

Lieutenant Carla Fangmeyer yawned, the tigress looking from the storefronts rolling past her side of the police cruiser to the white wolf in the driver’s seat. “Yeah?”

Lieutenant Adam Fangmeyer signaled, then turned a corner in their patrol route. “Do you ever wonder why we’re here?”

Carla blinked, returning her attention to the passing buildings and alleyways. She’d gotten used to weird questions over the decade they’d been married, but this took the cake. “Wow, getting real deep tonight, aren’t we? I mean, why are we here? Are we the product of some cosmic coincidence, or are we the product of some god, you know, with a plan for us and stuff? I don’t know, Fangy, but it definitely keeps me up at night.”

Silence reigned in the cruiser for five, ten, fifteen seconds, before Adam stopped at a STOP sign and turned to stare at his wife and partner. “What!? I meant what are we doing here in this neighborhood!”

Carla’s eyes widened and ears flattened. “Oh.”

“And what was all that stuff about God?”

“Nothing.”

“You… wanna talk about it?”

“N-no…”

“Okay,” said Adam, turning left once the traffic had cleared. “But why are we here? We’ve been patrolling this same six-block area for the past half-hour.”

As luck had it, their cruiser passed the main entrance to their building of interest just as the wolf finished this question. Carla gave it a nod as they went. “Right there, the Mystic Spring Oasis. Some hippie yak runs the place, declined the offer to get moved to a safer location. Said it would mess with his vibes, or something.”

Adam groaned and rolled his eyes. “Ugh. Naturalists. Why—”

The radio crackled to life, Clawhauser’s voice coming over frantic and rushed. “Fangmeyer and Fangmeyer, we’ve got a possible WildeHopps sighting down 4th and Crescent! Chief Bogo’s calling all nearby officers for an intercept and detainment!”

“Understood,” responded Carla at once, though between putting finger to the button for their sirens and actually pressing it she looked to her husband and frowned. “You don’t think those two are actually the killers, right? Like, it’s an actual impossibility within the parameters of the universe?”

“Damn right,” growled Adam, slamming the gas and tearing down the street. “And I’ll bet my life savings they’ve got a plan right this minute to set everything right.”

Satisfied, Carla hit the sirens and readied for whatever scene Hopps and Wilde had planned for them.

*

An empty minute passed that snow-blown street before the dark figure emerged from the alleyway shadows. Middling-sized, the wolf wore dark blue pants and coat, a hood up to hide all but the creature’s expressionless face.

The wolf stood at the edge of the street and looked left and right. At the sight of no cars coming he strode across, quick but casual, humming a soft tune to himself as he approached the main doors to the Mystic Spring Oasis. As expected, they opened without resistance. Locks, the wolf figured as he slid through the doors and closed them behind him, were in the same “unnatural” league as clothes to the Naturalists.

Having been to the club once that day already, in his undisguised form, the Wendigo Killer had no trouble navigating the darkened reception area, the empty and silent gardens beyond, the drafty hallways leading to the sleeping chambers of Yax the yak. He only had to pause once, ducking into an alcove as a distractingly plump rhino shuffled past, mumbling to herself about snooping cops and occupied restrooms.

As with the front door, the door to Yax’s sleeping quarters was lock-free. The Wendigo Killer slipped in, casting a quick glance around the room to ensure nobody else was there. He saw nobody and nothing of note, only a plotted plant in the corner, a writing desk covered in papers and books, and a glassless window looking out on a street corner.

Satisfied, the wolf stalked toward the bed across the room. The rumbling snores of the shapeless lump beneath the covers drowned out all other sound. The Wendigo killer chuckled as he slid his Ka-Bar knife from its sheaf inside his coat, lifting it high as he reached the bedside and reached out for the blankets. Another death, another face for the collect—

“Not so fast there, Scarface.”

The Wendigo Killer froze, before reaching down the rest of the way and tugging the covers down to find no more than several pillows and a boom box playing the snoring noises. He then turned to the fox standing with crossed arms next to the door. Of course. The door had opened into the room, blocking the fox from view. So simple and obvious, only an idiot would consider it.

Nick Wilde made a face as the Wendigo Killer stepped forward, into the soft light streaming through the window. “Oh, ew, ew, ew. Please tell me that’s not… is that the face of your wolf victim? That’s sick!”

The killer tilted his head as if in thought, before loosing a chuckle that in no way was reflected in his ‘face’. He threw his hood back and undid the leather straps going tight around his head, pulling off the now-loose wolf mask to reveal a scarred and grinning visage. “Yes, unfortunately. I usually try wearing the face of my last victim, but alas, the fox wasn’t quite ready yet.”

“Monahan.” Nick’s paws clenched into fists. He couldn’t help the growl slipping into his voice as he stalked forward a step. “You’re a sick, twisted little monster. I feel completely ashamed Judy and I got so thoroughly hustled by you down in the Barrens.”

“I can’t take all the credit for that,” said the clouded leopard. Idly, he turned the knife in his paw. “Johnson had the idea after running into Officer Hopps at the ZPD, snooping around where she shouldn’t be. Then he saw you and your fennec friend pick her up and knew you weren’t dropping the case that easily.”

“But why!” Nick took another step forward, pausing only when Monahan brought his knife up in a guard. “I just don’t understand why you’re doing this! I looked you up, you’ve got a successful business, plenty of clients, and the kind of work hours people would ki… er, pay for! And Delgato, Johnson, all the rest, they’re respected ZPD officers! Why through all that away for… for… what, some sick predator thrill!?”

“Oh, don’t act so high and mighty just because you get to pin a shiny badge on every morning!” Snarling, the leopard spun and smashed a paw through the boom box, throwing the wrecked remains to Nick’s feet. In the hissing, angry sparks, his mangled features took on the look of a devil. “Some of us got hurt far, far more personally by the Wendigo Killer than just a lost parent! We can’t all be the pretty face of the ZPD! We don’t all get a better life! I—”

But then he paused, his good eye focusing on Nick’s front shirt pocket and the body camera (standard-issue for all patrol officers) carefully hidden there, and Nick recoiled at the grin splitting Monahan’s face. “Oh, you sly gator! You got me monologuing! Hahahaha, oh, you trying to pull a Bellwether on me, Wilde?”

Nick shrugged, sneaking a glance at the window as he did so, worried that his backup hadn’t arrived yet. “W-well, you know, it worked once. And hey, you sure did a good job at it with that video the other day.”

“Yeah… I did…” Monahan’s teeth gleamed in the darkness as he advanced toward Nick, angling to pin him into one of the room’s corners. He twirled the knife in his paw. “It’s too bad nobody’s going to be seeing that footage…”

“H-hey now!” Nick backed up, grunting as his back hit a wall. Now he made no attempt to hide his look past Monahan toward the window. “Haven’t you already killed a fox this week!?”

“I don’t mind exceptions.” The knife rose high, twisting into a reversed hold to stab down. “Goodbye, Wi—”

Judy flew through the window, hitting the ground into a roll and springing to her feet just a few steps away from Monahan and Nick. Though panting hard and clutching at her chest through her shirt and jacket, her whole air was one of victory as she locked eyes with Monahan. “Sorry I’m late, had to go a bit slow. But now it’s over, Monahan. You’re through.”

“Oh, really?” Smirking, the clouded leopard pulled a second knife from his jacket, leveling one knife at each of the two smaller mammals. “The way I see it, you both—”

Far, far less gracefully than Judy had done, Officer Adam Fangmeyer threw himself through the window, landing with a thud and a puppy-ish yelp. “J-Judy, stop running, p-please… ow…”

Behind him Officer Carla Fangmeyer climbed through the window with some difficulty, the tigress freezing at the scene playing out before her. Nobody moved or said anything. Her eyes went from Nick and Judy to Monahan menacing them with knives, to the destroyed boom box, then to her partner struggling to his feet, and then back to Nick and Judy. She groaned as she leveled her tranq gun on Monahan. “This is another Bellwether scenario, isn’t it?”

“Aw,” man.” Adam drew and aimed his gun at the leopard as well. “The paperwork on this is gonna suck.”

“But… but…” Monahan’s whole figure shook, arms slowly lowering to his sides. “I’m… I’m the Wendigo… I’m the greatest of hunters…”

“No, Monahan.” In three quick moves, Judy knocked the knives out of his hold and kicked them over to the official officers on the scene. “You’re just one very, very sick man.”

*

“Breaking news!” Despite years of experience, the snow leopard failed utterly to keep the joy out of her voice. “New developments in the renewed Wendigo murders have cleared the names of renowned ZPD Officers Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde. New footage released just this evening by Chief Bogo has revealed the pair, alongside Officers Carla and Adam Fangmeyer, confronting the true Wendigo Killer, Taylor Monahan, during his attempt to claim his next victim.”

Peter Moosebridge kept his voice only a degree calmer as he took over the report. “Also newly released by the ZPD is an edited version of the previous footage with sound, revealing Monahan’s confession to his role as the new Wendigo Killer. The video was given over by Officer Dean Johnson, one of the officers named as an accomplice to Monahan.”

“In light of this sudden turn of events,” resumed the snow leopard co-anchor, “Mayor Swinton is holding a morning news conference at the ZPD, where Hopps and Wilde are expected to make their official statements thanking the citizens of Zootopia for their bravery during these trying times. From all of us here at ZNN, we extend our deepest gratitude for their heroic efforts.”

*

The paperwork, as Fangmeyer predicted, had been a nightmare to get through. Murder charges and Orders for arrest didn't just disappear with a snap of a finger, even with the chief of police pushing it through. Both Nick and Judy had to give multiple accounts of their actions since the murders began, both together and separate, again and again until the facts all seemed to blur together. There were forms to fill out, photos to be taken, statements to be checked and compared, arrests to be made and confessions to be gotten.

Johnson surrendered without a fight the moment arresting officers approached him. Trunkaby tried to run, injuring several bystanders before he was properly tranquilized. Higgins tried to do himself in, Chief Bogo barely managing to talk the hippo down. Delgato did nothing, said nothing, as he was taken into custody, merely staring at Nick and Judy as he was led out the doors of the ZPD with eyes that promised bloodshed. There were other arrests in other precincts, but Nick paid them no mind. After the capture of Monahan and the securing of Delgato’s computer files, he and Judy were officially done with the case, and he had never been more grateful.

Operating on only a few hours of sleep each, their presence in the morning’s press conference was mercifully brief. They stayed to the back of the group in their press uniforms while Mayor Swinton gave empty platitudes on faith in the police force and perseverance through adversity being the Zootopian way, followed by him and Judy taking the stage to recite the most barebones version of their involvement in the case possible, and then oh-so-politely getting shuffled off to the side as Chief Bogo stepped forward to field questions. The entire event left Nick feeling bizarrely empty.

“You know,” he said, whispering to Judy so that even if there had been someone else standing with them near the potted plants he wouldn’t be heard, “I expected to feel a little more celebratory about all this. Right now I just feel tired.”

Leaning against the wall, Judy shrugged. “It’s been a long week and a bad case. I’m amazed you haven’t sprouted any grey hairs yet.”

Nick smiled her way, eyes half-lidded. “You’re the only grey hare this fox needs, Carrots.”

She groaned and rolled her eyes, giving his shoulder a playful punch. “Oh shut up, that’s speciesist. Hares aren’t the same thing as rabbits. Might as well call you a jackal.”

“I think Doctor Beltz would take offense at that,” said Nick, feeling himself relax now. Judy was smiling, a shine back in her eyes. That was good enough for him.

“You know,” said Judy after a moment. “After this is all over, we should go on a vacation.”

“A long, long vacation,” added Nick, smiling. “Somewhere warm and friendly, where you can rest and let your heart heal up.”

Leaning back, Judy clasped her paws behind her head and stared up at the ceiling. “I’m imagining… Pawaii. Warm beaches, surfing, flybys over volcanos. Ooh, or maybe Gnu York City. Catch a showing of Camelton.”

“That does all sound good.” Nick mirrored the rabbit’s pose, save for staring up at the ceiling. He couldn’t look away from her. “Although, I was imagining more… a nice countryside farmhouse. Early rise every morning to the sounds of stampeding bunny kits, every meal hearty and home-cooked, afternoons and evenings spent frolicking through fields and nights spent stargazing.”

Judy met his gaze, one eyebrow up and lips turned up in a smile. “You asking me to take you home to the family, Mr. Wilde?”

Nick shrugged, smile growing wider. “Well, Ms. Hopps, you can’t say my first trip to meet the family was under ideal circumstances.”

A laugh, soft and full of warmth. “No, I suppose not.”

A minute of companionable silence passed. Then, Nick's phone buzzed. Shooting an apologetic smile at Judy, Nick dug his phone out, saw it was his mom's number, and answered with a grin. "Hey, Mom! Sorry in advance for whispering, I am only twelve feet from a guy who'd kill me for messing up this press conference."

"Bogo is the least of your worries, Wilde.”

Nick froze, his grip tightening on the phone until it sounded like the device might break. "Delgato." There was no mistaking that slow drawl and no time to wonder how the tiger had escaped police custody. "Where's my mother?"

Beside him Judy jumped, eyes growing wide. Across the line Delgato chuckled, the promised growl standing Nick's fur on end. "She's right here... with the lovely Mrs. Hopps. Not too mention that lovely little brood she brought with her. Such nice children. Strange, how many fox friends she had with her."

"You... you bastard... I..." Nick didn't even realize he'd raised his voice until Judy's touch to his arm and nod toward the nearby press conference. Some of the reporters were glancing their way, and Bogo looked on the verge of marching over himself.

"If you ever want to see your mothers again," continued Delgato, "you will not alert Bogo or the press. This is between the three of us."

"Sure it is," said Nick, walking already across the ZPD lobby toward the entrance, Judy following close behind. He kept his eyes half-closed, kept his stride casual, kept his smirk bright as he gave the group a parting wave. He didn't, couldn't, keep the tremor out of his voice. "Just the three of us, sure. Just, uh, where's this private party gonna be?"

The phone echoed with a chuckle that sent chills down Nick's spine. "Somewhere historic for all of us. Not far from there."

CLICK.

Nick nearly dropped the phone, crammed it back into his pocket instead before shouldering the glass door open. He looked leftward for a moment toward the Wendigo mural on city hall, nearly washed away by then by service teams rallied by the solving of the murder spree, before looking ahead and right to the National History Museum. The banner across the entrance reading "Closed for renovations" had been torn down.

"Well Carrots, this might be it."

"Might be," said Judy, paws clenched into fists as she started toward the museum. Nick kept stride with her. "The perp has home field advantage, has hostages, and had decades more experience than the two of us put together."

Nick rested a paw on the butt of his police baton, suddenly glad Bogo and the mayor had insisted they show up fully armed and equipped for the press. "What's the play then, Judy?"

"No play." Judy made a show of turning the voltage on her stun gun to max. "Just a job to do."

They found the glass doors, as expected, unlocked. Past them, the museum was much as Nick remembered it had been the one and only previous time he'd been there, that final confrontation with Bellwether in his and Judy's first case. By the natural light shining through the doors behind them he saw shadowed paintings of primitive mammals adorning the walls, ancient tools and pottery, rows of leafy plants and trees to give a sense of the primeval to the whole area. Nick thought they did nothing but give too many places for a predator like Delgato to hide.

"Carrots, do you hear anything?"

"No. Do you smell anything?"

Nick slowed to take a deep breath and nearly gagged. Holding his nose, he pointed with a shaking finger to a circular pit several yards ahead, where had been built a diorama of a typical prairie setting. "Blood down in there. Fear, too."

"Of course it would have to be there of all places."

The pair approached the pit with eyes wide for the slightest movement, ears primed for the slightest sound. Nick tried to keep a professional mindset against the mounting fear enveloping him, but as they reached the pit edge and looked down that thin veneer broke. Down below they saw countless small figures, bunnies mostly, with foxes scattered through them, all of them bound and gagged.

"Mom! Finnick! Mrs. Hopps!"

Several ears and eyes turned up at this shout, though many more of the figures remained distressingly still, proved alive only by the rise and fall of their chests. At the sight of Nick and Judy those conscious few began squirming, letting out shouts muffled by duct tape.

"Judy, come on, we gotta find a rope or-"

Nick never saw Delgato coming. He only saw Judy's ears turn, her eyes widen as they focused behind him. Then she shouted and tackled him to the ground, the air quaking as a quarter-ton of muscle and striped fur flew over them. Then the marble floor quaked with a sudden impact, a thunderous growl sending the two cops scrambling back to their feet.

“Delgato! You’re going to pay for—”

A lunging punch cut Judy off, forcing and Nick to dodge to opposite sides. “No. No talking. I am not Bellwether.” The tiger raked his claws at her, barely grazing her ears as she ducked down and delivered a strike to the back of his knee with her baton. He stumbled and Nick ran up his back, spinning his baton before delivering a downward bash to the top of Delgato’s head.

The baton broke in half. Nick had a moment to stare, stunned, at the handle remaining in his paw before Delgato grabbed him and threw him onto Judy as the bunny ran in for another knee strike.

The next moment Delgato stomped down at them, the pair barely avoiding getting their heads smashed by rolling over. As Delgato brought his leg up to try again, roaring his bloodlust, Judy flipped back to her feet and jumped, ramming headfirst into—

Nick flinched as that roar turned into a gagging little mew, his own groin aching in sympathy despite all the enmity between the foes. He climbed to his feet, looking from a staggering Delgato to the overly-pleased-looking rabbit a foot from him. “Good Lord, Carrots. What’d he ever do to you?”

Judy turned to him, a disbelieving look on her face. “Nick! This is not the time for jo—”

A feral growl, a flash of claws, and suddenly Judy was staggering, eyes wide, three deep slashes pouring blood across the right side of her face.

“JUDY!”

Nick charged forward, paw fumbling at his holster. Delgato moved faster, sending Judy flying clear across to the other side of the diorama pit with a backhand, then grabbing Nick's paw as he raised his stun gun and squeezing.

CRUNCH.

"AAAAUUUGH!"

The abandoned museum echoed with Nick's screams, accompanied through the shadowed halls by the snap and crackle of breaking bones and the horrified shouts of the hostages. Delgato growled again and pressed down, forcing Nick to his knees. Body trembling in agony, near-blinded by tears, Nick bit and clawed at the tiger's paw. The sudden terror that the tiger would keep squeezing and twisting until the whole limb came off filled him to his core.

"So... weak!" With a look of contempt, Delgato swung Nick up and over by his shattered arm, slamming him back-first against the floor hard enough to crack the marble. "So small! So helpless!"

He did it again, then again, until Nick's head lolled uselessly on his neck and every breath carried a fresh coat of blood. Then Delgato let go of Nick's ruined paw, placed a foot down on the fox's chest, and pressed down enough to hold him in place.

"We were a respectable police force, once," said Delgato after a short moment. Lying there, dazed and broken, Nick struggled to listen, praying as he did for Judy at least to be okay. "Filled with the strong, the mighty, the POWERFUL. Then you and Hopps happened, and now every runty mammal in the world thinks they can be a cop. Now two-thirds of this year's current police academy cadets are smaller than freaking wolves!"

Nick coughed, misting the foot holding him down with red. Catching sight of movement behind Delgato, he tried not to smile and give it away. "So that's the truth then, huh? You, you're just a damned cub, scared of the future!"

The tiger growled and pressed down harder on Nick's chest. Nick gagged, nails of his good paw digging into the floor. Even then, he forced a grin. "Too bad... you can't... stop the future…"

"You're right," said Delgato. Smiling, he bared his claws and raised his arm, readying his strike. "But I can hurt it. Any last words, Wilde?"

"Of co-course!" Another cough, Nick's grin growing red. "Your partners were all cowards... killers... and traitors..." Pain rippled through his body as he grabbed desperately for his dropped stun gun with his good paw. "But my partner... is Judy Hopps!"

Delgato had but a moment to look confused before Judy leaped onto his shoulders, stabbing the prongs of her stun gun into the side of his neck and pulling the trigger. At nearly the same moment Nick stabbed his stun gun's prongs into the meat of the tiger's thigh and pulled his trigger.

The crackle of the two stun guns going off together crashed through the museum foyer like a lightning bolt, accompanied by a scream that rattled bone and cracked the glass of the surrounding displays. Nick jerked from the feedback, watching with wide eyes as the tiger spasmed and frothed from the double dose of elephant-stunning electricity coursing through him. It seemed to last for hours to his shaken mind, more likely lasted only five to ten seconds before the charge ran out and Delgato collapsed away from Nick with a deafening thud, smoke rising from his still-twitching body.

Another thud rang out as Judy fell to Nick's left, body smoking and motionless.

The museum fell silent, save for Nick's ragged breathing, the muffled movements of the hostages down in the pit, and, distant but growing ever nearer, the wailing of sirens. Nick tried to stand up, collapsing back down as pain roared through the mangled remains of his right arm. He settled for lying there, feeling the spreading warmth that was his blood pooling around him.

"Carrots... Hopps... J-Judy..."

A low, wheezing breath answered him. Looking over to the downed rabbit beside him, Nick saw her looking back at him, her eyes wet, her chest heaving, her lips moving but no words coming out. Nick's heart broke at the sight.

"Judy..."

With the last dregs of strength left to him, Nick reached out and gripped Judy's paw in his own, squeezing to express what he couldn't say. And as he did the bunny visibly calmed, her chest slowing, face settling on a smile. Nick matched her smile, deciding despite his fear that there were probably worse ways to go.

Together, the sound of sirens replaced by the pounding of countless hooves and paws, the pair closed their eyes and waited for the end.


	13. Epilogue

_CITY MOURNS HERO COPS!_

Bethany Blaine stared at the newspaper headline in abject horror. All around the Arctic hare the police academy cafeteria rang with whispers and worry, dozens of other cadets reading similar newspapers. For Beth it felt like the world had ended. Judy Hopps had driven her, inspired her, given form to her dreams. If Zootopia had destroyed her…

“It’s not as bad as the headline looks,” said Reggy to Beth’s left. The coyote flinched back as she focused her scarlet eyes on him, shrugging and offering an apologetic smile. “Um, I mean, they got the bad guy in the end, so…”

Bethany grit her teeth, ears folding back as the hare turned her attention back to the newspaper.

_CITY MOURNS HERO COPS!_

_Police Sergeant Judy Hopps, 30, and Police Detective Nick Wilde, 38, went on extended medical leave from the Zootopia Police Department this morning after injuries sustained in the detainment of corrupt police officer Calisto Delgato._

_Announced via an official ZPD press release, the news comes as little surprise to many, as Hopps and Wilde spent the last three weeks in intensive care at Zootopia Mercy Hospital._

_"It's a rotten shame to lose such fine officers," said ZPD Chief Bogo when approached for comment on the announcement. "Especially in addition to the many cops arrested in connection with the Wendigo Killer. However, I can assure you that the ZPD can and will continue to effectively maintain law and order within Zootopia."_

_Others remain more hopeful._

_"I've been friends with Judy since her first day on the force," said one officer who wished to remain anonymous. "It's a matter of when, not if. The moment that bunny's got a clean bill of health, you can bet she'll be clamoring to rejoin the ZPD. And not as some desk jockey either!"_

_Meanwhile, the extent of Hopps' and Wilde's injuries has brought new attention to the risks smaller mammals face when joining-_

Beth set the paper down and took a deep breath, holding it for five seconds before breathing out. She suddenly felt like laughing. "They're not dead. Only... retiring. Probably not even permanently. Okay, good. That headline terrified me."

"You're not the only one scared," said Reggie, glancing around before leaning in as if to include her in a kind of conspiracy. "I’ve heard those lynx brothers are dropping out. That grey fox, Sammy, too. It's not looking pretty."

Beth frowned and looked around the cafeteria. She couldn't see the sole fox in their class anywhere, though the lynxes the coyote had mentioned were sitting and eating in their usual place near the back.

"What about you? What are you going to do?"

"What am I going to do..." Her eyes traveled down to the newspaper once more. With the article came a photograph of Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde. Not of them injured, beaten, but of them standing tall and proud side by side in front of a police cruiser, one of the fox's arms slung over the rabbit's shoulders, both of them smiling. Beth knew the photo well. It was the same photo used in the police academy brochures.

"I'm going to do laps."

"Huh?"

Beth stood, grabbing her bag and her tray with its half-finished salad and jumping from the bench. "There's a free hour after lunch. No rest for the wicked."

*

“Monahan, you’ve got a visitor!”

Taylor looked up from his folded paws, the snow leopard blinking as the solid steel door to his solitary prison cell rolled open. He blinked again as a wolf he’d never seen before stepped through. She wore a black business suit and scarf that stood in stark contrast with her white fur, complimenting it far better than Taylor’s orange jumpsuit did his blotchy grey coat. In one paw she carried a suitcase. In the other, a folded umbrella.

Taylor waited until the door had been rolled closed and locked before speaking. “You’re not my lawyer. Heh. Hehehehee. You’re nobody’s lawyer.”

“No, I’m not.” The wolf smiled, leaning her umbrella against the wall and setting her briefcase down on the cell’s sink. “I am Ms. Black. I work for Ms. White.”

Taylor dropped his smile, a chill running through his blood. He leaned as far back in his cot as he could, back hitting the wall behind him with a thump. “I’m not saying anything. I don’t even know anything. It was just a bit of fun, I swear! Delgato talked me into it!”

“I’m sure he did,” said Ms. Black, opening her briefcase. “But Mr. Delgato is in a coma. You aren’t.”

Taylor swallowed, glancing past the wolf to the cell door. He knew there was no getting to it. “S-so that’s it, then. You’re going to kill me.”

“Don’t be silly.” Ms. Black turned to him, holding up a piece of paper from the briefcase, the legalese on it beyond unintelligible. “I am simply here to inform you that your job application has been carefully considered… and rejected.”

Taylor blinked. “Um… what?”

“Our screening process is very thorough,” said the wolf, assuming the kind of tone used when addressing a wayward student. “Ms. White strongly frowns upon the hiring of maniacs like yourself. More trouble than you are worth in the long run. As such, I hope you weren’t planning to rely on our legal expertise to get you out of this mess you’re in.”

“I… um…” He swallowed, not sure what to feel now that his life wasn’t on the line. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Excellent!” Snapping her briefcase shut, Ms. Black stepped back to the door and knocked. “I suppose this is the last we’ll be seeing of each other, then. Goodbye, Mr. Monahan.”

The door rolled open and she stepped through. Taylor waved her off, then relaxed back on his cot. Never had he been so relieved to be stuck in prison.

Two minutes later, he realized the wolf had left her umbrella behind. “Hey, wait—”

*

“An explosion rocked Zootopia Correctional Facility this evening, killing a dozen prisoners and guards and injuring twenty. More after sports.”

*

Few of their fellow officers came to see them off at the train station, the ZPD being as stretched thin as it was. There was Francine, who was also on medical leave anyway. There was Clawhauser, sobbing as he carried to their seats a box of donuts fit for a platoon. And there was Chief Bogo himself, his stern demeanor dropping just enough to wish Nick and Judy a fond farewell.

"Never have I met such infuriating officers. Keep in touch."

"Yeah, don't be strangers, you two! I'll keep your desk warm for when you come back, Hopps!"

"I-I'm g-g-GONNA MISS YOU GUYSSSS! I-I'LL GO TO EVERY GAZELLE CONCERT IN Y-YOUR HONOR!"

Judy's laughter at this was cut short by a bout of breathless coughing, forcing her to settle with giving the portly cheetah a hug. As she did that, Nick shook paws with the others, before giving his mother the tightest, warmest one-armed hug he could in that winter air.

"I'm proud of you, son. Never forget that."

"I won't, Mom. Love you."

After a final check to make sure they'd loaded all their luggage up, they boarded the train and were soon off.

As the hours and miles passed, other passengers stared at Nick in mixes of disgust and pity, at the bandaged stump where his right arm ended just above where the elbow would be. Delgato's final, lasting wound upon the fox. Nick didn't blame them, but he did ignore them. His focus instead was on Judy lying beside him, her head resting on his khaki-adorned lap. He stroked over her head and along her ears with his remaining paw to both their enjoyment. Once or twice he touched too close to the too-fresh, too-sensitive trio of scars going diagonal across the right side of her face and she would flinch, and he would apologize, and they both would retreat to safer waters.

Eventually, they reached the Bunnyburrow train station. Before the pair could do more than begin trying to work out how to carry all their luggage and Clawhauser's farewell donuts, there came a loud shout of "JUDY!" followed by a half-dozen bunnies looking around her working their way through the crowd of departing mammals, led along by Stu Hopps.

"Dad!"

The two ran for the other, practically body slamming together, to Nick's amusement.

As father and daughter hugged, her siblings hurried forward to grab her and Nick's luggage, already heading out the train doors with it faster than Nick could blink, forcing him to jog to keep up with the one bag he insisted on carrying himself. To their credit and Nick's relief, none of them batted an eye at the stump of an arm he now sported.

"Trust us, Mr. Wilde," said one sister maybe five years Judy's junior once they were all on the platform. "Over 300 siblings, plus countless cousins and nieces and nephews, we've all seen our fair share of farming accidents. Not much bothers you once you've seen a rabbit ear caught in a corn thresher."

Nick tried to imagine this, got as far as the first scream of pain, and had to stop. It was too soon for that sort of thing. Too soon.

"Oh, stop scaring the fox and get the rest of that stuff to the trucks, you kids!"

Nick never knew he could feel so relieved to see Stu Hopps coming over, Judy hopping along beside him. Seeing her, Nick smiled, holding his arm out for her to slide under it, finding strength in her presence. He then turned to the Hopps patriarch and nodded. "Mr. Hopps, sir, thank you for all of this. I don't-"

He was cut off by a sudden, brief, and surprisingly tight hug from the elder mammal, eliciting a giggle from Judy.

"Aw heck, boy," said Stu once the hug was over, "I should be thanking you for everything you've done for us. I still have my wife and a lot of my kids thanks to you. And shoot, no need for misters and sirs. Just call me Pops!"

Nick froze at that, unsure if he could trust his own ears, unsure if the flare of hope in his heart warranted feeding.

For his part, Stu gave an understanding smile, patting Nick on the shoulder before turning and going off to organize cramming the luggage into his truck bed. Nick watched him go, the sight growing ever so slightly blurred. He wondered when he'd become so sentimental.

Judy grabbing his paw and squeezing snapped Nick from his reverie. Her smile was soft, her amethyst eyes shining. "Hey. You ready to go home?"

Nick coughed, blinking away his tears before squeezing her paw back and returning her smile. "Am I ready? Yes, yes I am."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we go, A Better Life is finished! I want to give the warmest thanks to all those who took the time to read and enjoy this fan fiction. It was an absolute joy to write!
> 
> For those wondering, yes, there will be a sequel to this, tentatively titled A Better Legacy, and it will follow up on all the sequel hooks set up in this epilogue. I'm hoping to have that started before the end of July.
> 
> Why the longish wait? Well, I'll be self-publishing my first original fantasy novel within the next few weeks! Been working on this for the last three years of my life, so I hope those interested will keep an eye out for Legends of Heraldale in the near future!
> 
> Once more, thank you all for reading A Better Life.


End file.
